Jurassic Park: Survey
by Trent Roman
Summary: Brent Richley and his team of "explorers" are called upon to survey Isla Capula for potential colonization, unaware that the island is already inhabited by prehistoric beasts. Cut off from the outside world, they must find a way off the island... or else.
1. Sections 01 to 04 - Magna Carta

Disclaimer: John Hammond, InGen, Jurassic Park, Isla Nebular and Isla Sorna are all things that I have unconscionably stolen from Michael Crichton's novels Jurassic Park and The Lost World, as well as the movies of the same name. I have drawn on both forms of media (the books and the movies) for this story. It does not follow one or the other specifically… it is implied that John Hammond is still alive in this story, but I use dinosaur elements from the books… and a few that were in neither. None of the characters from Jurassic Park or Lost World, in either variation, appear in this story. Instead, I have chosen to plunk down a new set of characters on the island. Well, I guess that's all there is to say, except… enjoy the story.

#### Los Cinquo Muertes

##### Chapter 1: Survey

**In this instalment:**

1. A Summer Place

2. The Military on Boredom

3. Magna Carta****

4. Los Diablos en la Obscuridad

**MAINLAND**

**1**

# A SUMMER PLACE

As summer dwindled down into the era of fading light and falling leaves that was fall, a man named Brent Richley lounged in his backyard, enjoying the last few warm days of Indian summer. It was unseasonably warm for late September, and it hadn't rained in over a week. CNN kept showing a procession of farmers complaining about this, but Richley thought that it was nice of summer to go out like this, sort of like a hearty wave goodbye. Heat wave, that is.

Eyes closed, Richley breathed in deeply the air, thick with the musk of freshly cut grass. It was the smell of civilization, he thought. As a professional explorer (surveyor actually, but he preferred to think of it as explorer – it sounded more romantic) he had traveled the world over, and there seemed to be one constant to every countryside, suburb and city. During the summer, you invariably smelled cut grass. Where there was cut grass, there was civilization, and vice versa.

In the background, the occasional passing car made a slow, lazy rumble as it drove past on the asphalt. In the foreground, the constant _tchick-tchick-tchick of the sprinkler, still working despite the first day of fall being right around the corner, worked on Richley like a hypnotist's coin, the repetition drawing him closer and closer to sleep. He felt for a second that the lazy Sunday afternoon would never end._

The first indication that something was wrong was the change in the sprinkler's sound. It didn't changed rhythm, but became more pronounced. Sighting heavily, he prepared to lift himself up, open his eyes and glance at the possibly malfunctioning machine. But before Richley could do any of that, a gout of cold water hit him in the face. Richley jerked at the contact of the foreign substance, falling off his lawn chair, but getting up rapidly due to his explorer (surveyor) instincts.

He had looked up just in time to see Alice putting the sprinkler back in it's place, now that it had served it purpose, namely rousing Richley from his trance-like relaxation.

"Ah, jeez, Alice, why did you do that?!"

Looking down, he noticed with some satisfaction that his daughter had missed his clothes, a Hawaiian T-shirt and a pair of long Bermuda shorts. His tourist outfit, his daughter called it. Only a man such as Brent Richley would be considered a tourist in his own hometown. He really didn't feel like getting wet today. After all, it wasn't _that warm._

"I'm sorry, did I wake you up?" she mock-asked.

"I wasn't sleeping, Alice. Though I could have been, given a minute or two."

"Well wake up. FedEx just delivered a package for you. It's from the Institute." She handed him the package and walked back into the house.

Indeed, the package bore the sigil of the National Institute of Geography in the upper-right corner. Tearing the package open at the top, he was surprised to find only a letter. Usually such packages came with maps to the area that they wanted to survey. Puzzled, he read the letter:

Dear Mr. Richley,

We hope this letter finds you well. The National Institute of Geography would like to request your expert services in a surveying job. We further request a meeting with your person Sunday, at 20 hundred hours, to discuss location, equipment, and other such matters. The price will be your standard fee. We hope to see you soon.

## James Palwood

James Palwood,

Director of Surveying Services,

National Institute of Geography.

Short, but not exactly to the point. James Palwood was an old friend, and his formal manner in this letter further mystified him. He resolved himself to be at the Institute at 20 hundred hours, which would be (Richley made a brief mental calculation) 8 o'clock tonight. 

Too disturbed now to try and take a nap again, Richley went inside to fix himself a late afternoon snack.

**2**

THE MILITARY ON BOREDOM

Brent Richley leaned forwards and paid his cabby through the window. His work done and paid for, the yellow taxicab flashed its intention to rejoin the traffic mainstream and soon lost the National Institute of geography from view.

Straitening back up, Richley gazed at the familiar sight of the Institute. The large building, a 19th century architectural relic, had been augmented with a variety of global sigils during the years since it replaced the old courthouse that had been there before. Now, its most prominent feature was two great big pillars that flanked the marble steps leading up to the Institute. The massive stones were designed to imitate the mythological Pillars of Hercules in the Isles of the Blest, but instead of being adorned with Atlantean sigils, it was topped by two globes. The right showed the Americas prominently, cutting along the 90th meridian. Inversely, the second globe featured Russia, Mongolia, China, Burma and the Indian Ocean. Richley frowned as he spotted a few political frontiers that were no longer accurate. He briefly wondered how much it would cost keep a chiselled stone map up to date. 

Once Richley had passed through the big red double doors of the National Geography Institute, the middle-aged man who ran the Surveying Services sector called him. He was dressed in the typical office-man getup. The sombre pants and jacket over the white shirt and the tie. Today's tie was a plain, mocha-like brown. Richard Palwood was an old friend of Richley's, as their jobs had caused them to cross path many times. 

Richley was a veteran explorer/surveyor of the Institute. He had led survey teams that attempted to chart the depths of the Amazonian and central African jungles. Richley had been on over a dozen expeditions, sometimes difficult, sometimes deadly, but had always managed to bring the team back whole.

_Except for…– his mind began to say, but Richley cut the thought off. No use dwelling on that._

The core team of these groups accompanied Richley wherever he went: the Amazon, Africa's jungles and savannas, the tropical Indonesian isles, hidden valleys of Asia and Richley's backyard (but only until they had found a place of their own, of course, plus a couple of green cards). And so, when the Institute (or a wealthy private entrepreneur) needed an area charted, they usually called upon Brent Richley. What was different from all those others jobs (missions, the romantic part of his brain insisted on calling them), is that previously he had always known where he was going before entering the big red doors.

"So," asked Richley, trying to contain his curiosity but not quite succeeding. "What's up?"

"That," replied Palwood with a mysterious smile "Is a surprise."

Intrigued and more than slightly curious, Richley follow his friend into Palwood's office. It was spacious enough, the kind that you might find in any office building throughout North America. A desk, a couple of chairs in front of them, a window in the left wall (from the perspective of someone sitting in one of the chairs), and a wastebasket in the corner, inconspicuous because it was the same wooden brown as the rest of the room. Behind the desk, hanging on the wall, was a flat metal globe, this one having no continents at all, only parallels and meridians. Sitting in one of the two chairs facing Palwood's desk was an aging man in an U.S. military uniform, which, judging by the quantity of markings and pips on the man's shirt, was quite advanced in rank.

With an annoyed look on his face, Richley turned towards his friend.

"What's the meaning of this?"

Richley didn't like the military. He had once. After he graduated from high school, a dreamy Richley had enrolled in the army. See the world, live adventures, and all that crap. However, the army's restrictions had choked down on Richley's wild and roaming spirit. This had resulted in several confrontations with his superiors, most notably the one where he sucker-punched a commanding officer that was screaming at him for taking a pause in the middle of cleaning the toilets with a toothbrush. Finally a dishonourable discharge ended private Richley's stay with the proud and the few. 

It was after this incident, a terrible letdown that Richley came back to his hometown and enrolled in his local college. There he participated in his first survey mission. It was simple enough, a short trip to the Montana badlands, mapping out rock outcroppings and the sediments in the ground for a possible rock quarry. As it turned out, the ground rock was too hard, but the trip had set him on his path in life. 

Still, he never forgave the military for kicking him out, even though he knew he was responsible. If they had just given him a little more liberty…

"The expansion of America, Mr. Richley."

Though Richley had asked Palwood, it was the military man who answered.

"I'm General Samson," he said, extending his hand for Richley to shake it. Richley did so, reluctantly. 

"Please," continued the general, "Have a seat." General Samson motioned to the other chair besides him. Richley sat there, and Palwood sat in his usual spot behind the desk.

"So what's this about, general?" Richley asked with as much neutrality he could muster.

"Mr. Richley, the government wants to hire you to explore and chart a chain of islands in the Pacific Ocean. We want you to make a topographical and geological map of the area, as well as charting the flora and fauna, and major hydrographical currents, in the hopes that these islands can support an American colony."

This surprised Richley. There hadn't been any real colonization in over a century now. There was no longer any new territory to appropriate, and all the lands that could be lived on, were. Besides, there was no point. God knows all the planet's resources had already been tapped. And since there was no war (well, there were a few in Africa and Eastern Europe, but they didn't concern the United States), tactical reasons no longer applied. Very few people would want to leave their nice air-conditioned homes to ruff it out on a remote island colony for no better reason than "it is there".

"Why?" asked the dumbfounded Richley.

"Mr. Richley, America is bored. Let's face it, peace may be better than war, but it's a lot more boring. There is nothing going on at the international level to catch the population's interest." Again, the wars he had thought of earlier flashed into Richley's mind, but he guessed the public wouldn't be overly concerned with something that didn't involve them directly. "The entertainment business is having a hard time keeping people entertained. Predictable Hollywood terrorists and the constant marriages and divorces of the superstars can only keep people interested for a certain amount of time. Soon, the populace is going to realize that their lives are boring as hell, and unhappy population makes for an irritable government. So we asked ourselves, what fascinated us when we were kids? The answer was: cowboys."

_Loony Alert! By now Richley was certain the general had flipped his top. First colonies, expansion, and now cowboys? Did this guy think it was 1800 and something? Besides, if the guy was old enough to remember cowboys as a major source of entertainment, he definitely belonged in a nursing home. Unaware of Richley's thoughts, general Samson continued his winded speech:_

"Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not thinking of resurrecting the cowboy craze; I know that that's considered _passé. No, what I'm suggesting is a new frontier, a group of real life pioneers settling on wild lands. A yearlong and years long project that the population can keep track of, and be fascinated by. Something to keep them interested, because if it works, it __will be interesting." _

"And you want me to go in first and make a map of the place for your would-be pilgrims," Richley cut-in, anticipating the Samson's eventual request. The general nodded an affirmative, and Richley got up and started pacing the room.

"I don't know. I don't usually work for governments. These kinds of expeditions are usually low-key, so if they don't succeed, nobody sweats about it. This, however, sounds very far from low-key. Sounds more like a live-coverage thing. Besides, I don't think my daughter would appreciate being pulled out of school at the start of the year."

That last one, Richley knew, was a lie. Alice would love nothing better than a chance to get away from what she called the "boring, monotonous and dreary routine of an unremarkable school in a lifeless town." She had an adventurous spirit and could not stay in one place for very long. She wanted to break free of all rules, and roam the globe. She had too much of her mother in her.

It seemed, however, that General Samson was ready for opposition. 

"I assure you that very few people will know of this project, and all documents pertaining to it will be kept confidential. Your involvement in this project will only be revealed if the mission is a success and then only if you wish it to be. However, if you really don't want this mission, I'm sure we can ask Dr. Hiller."

_Damn, though Richley, __this guy is good. He had obviously done a more than superficial research on Richley before coming to the meeting. Dr. Hiller was another professional explorer, and was second only to Richley himself. Both men often vied for leadership of a certain expedition. He could be said to be Richley's rival, nemesis even, if such words could be applied to the relatively peaceful area in which they work._

Besides, Richley was only human. One could not stop oneself to dream of glory. By inaugurating a new land, Richley felt he was sure to become famous. Hell, just look at Columbus. He has countries named after him. Richley though of his name being given to cities. Brentown. Richleyville. Richley smiled faintly at the incongruous thought.

"All right," Richley finally said, "Where am I going?"

**3**

MAGNA CARTA

The map room was immense, and the black walls seemed to give it a cavernous feel. The were computers everywhere on the floor, and on the walkway (because it was a two-story map room) were libraries, storing maps, some so old that they had bizarre whales and serpentine sea creatures and "_Here there be Dragons" scrawled all over them. Above the libraries, blue and green squares showed all the landmasses in the world: North America, Central America, South America, Europe, North Africa, South Africa, the Middle-East, Russia, India, Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, Indonesia, Australia and New Guinea, and a big blue one that Richley figured contained the small green blotches of the Solomons and the other Pacific Isles._

The National Geographical Institute prided itself upon having the most comprehensive and researched computerized map in the world. Thing is, they are probably right. Standing in the middle of the vast map room was a large grey table with a smooth black surface. As Richley and the general approached this table, Palwood went over to a nearby computer terminal. 

"Just a sec, and I'll give you your islands," said Palwood. 

Just then, the black surface on the table lit up. It was then that Richley realized that the black surface was in fact a computer screen. He saw on it a globe. Then a flashing red square appeared on the globe, and the square, representing Central America, grew until it occupied the entire screen. Then, about 75 kilometres into the Pacific, off the cost of Costa Rica, another squared appeared, and, like the first, magnified a portion of the ocean that carried five island, three of them relatively big, the two others smaller. 

General Samson then spoke up:

"These, Mr. Richley, are the islands we are thinking of colonizing. Their total superficies is slightly smaller than that of Hawaii's. The climate there is nice and hot most of the year, except for your occasional tropical storms. Of course, the colony would be built to safely withstand these. There are a few arable lands for cultivation and some small mineral deposits here and there. The local wildlife is small and peaceful, and many of the animals there can be domesticated. Th-"

"Wait a minute," interrupted Richley. Something wasn't sitting quite right. "If these islands are that nice, than why has nobody ever gone there before?"

"Until recently, the islands belonged to the Costa Rican government, who frankly did not have the kind of funds for such a costly and low-income project. A few years ago, a private company, InGen, purchased the islands from Costa Rica. However, InGen's board of directors soon realized how costly transportation and communications were when the head bureau was on an island. So, with the authorization of the Costa Rican government, the company's CEO, one John Hammond, sold the islands to us. Now, to get back to the colony, we where thinking of setting up the main colony on Isla Capula," one of the three big islands lit up red, "With secondary ones on Isla Nebular and Isla Sorna," the other big ones turned red, "The two other islands will only be colonized if this project works out," the two remaining isles lit up, making the whole island chain look like a fiery half-circle. "This," Samson said, unnecessarily pointing on the map, "Is Isla Capula, where you and your team will begin your charting work."

"Speaking of my team, do you have any restriction and who and what I bring?" _Oh, sure, Richley thought. __The military loves restrains. Here's a list of who you can't have._

"No. In this case, we will trust your judgment as a veteran explorer. However, we will be sending with you a governmental attaché, who will make sure that the island meets government security standards, plus a small group of soldiers, just for the sake of being prepared. How soon can you leave?"

"To assemble the team and the equipment, I'd say somewhere between one and two weeks." 

"In that case, I suggest you get packing."

###### ISLAND

**4**

### DIABLOS EN LA OBSCURIDAD

While it might have taken Richley one to two weeks to get all his personnel in one place and all the equipment he needed together, General Samson made it a point of never putting off something you can do right away. _There's no time like the present, his mother used to say, and it was a philosophy Samson lived by. As soon as he was back in his car (a black unmarked limo, the earmark of high-ranking military personnel), he picked up his car-phone (another earmark) and made the call that Miguel Sanchez and his men were waiting for._

Sanchez hung up the phone and told his men they were moving out. They shambled into positions in the small motorboats, some putting on their lifejackets, others not and daring anybody else to make something of it. They were not soldiers. They were menial task labourers. The poor and the dregs of Costa Rican society, who were so desperate for cash that they would jump into motorboats and make a seventy-five kilometre trip out in the ocean at the promise of money.

Sanchez was in charge of this particular group of misfits. He had never seen, spoken to, or even heard of General Samson. The good general had called a contact in the Costa Rican government, and gave him money to get a job done. That contact had in turn called a less-trustworthy contact to which he assigned the task and gave him two-thirds of the sum he received. The rest he kept for himself. The less-trustworthy contact did the same, until the long list of exchanges ended at Miguel Sanchez, with only one-fifth of the original sum remaining. Like his predecessors, Sanchez had made sure to hire men who would work for a song, thus ensuring his profits.

The job was simple enough: clear a portion of the jungle and install a landing field. 

The boats were in poor condition, and as they did not wish to navigate at night (no radar), they only arrived around noon the following day. They circled the island quickly, taking care of avoiding a few rocky reefs (cheap, but not suicidal). Finally, on one of the beaches, they located an area that would do fine. The beach was large, and the vegetation that surrounded it was mostly overgrowth from the nearby palm trees and ferns.

Sanchez split the group into two. The first group would work on the area of the landing strip that was covered by vegetation, rooting out the ferns with bare hands and ropes. The second team, which Miguel Sanchez would oversee, focused on laying down the large, grey, holy bands that would serve as runway for the planes. Sanchez though inwardly that to use planes to go to an island instead of helicopters was kind of stupid, but he really didn't care as long as he got paid.

They lost Rodriguez during their fifth night on Isla Capula. Nobody did a roll call at night or in the morning, but by noon of the sixth day it was known that the moustached Costa Rican was no where to be seen, and had been since the night before. As night began to fall again, Sanchez and the rest of the crew ventured slightly inland, a disorganized search party, calling Rodriguez over and over, but getting no reply. Sanchez had been unwilling to devote any daylight to the search, and he refused to conduct any more search parties, threatening a cut in pay for anybody who did. When faced with the prospect of losing their hard-earned money, the building teams went back to work. Sanchez personally though their missing man had deserted. Probably was hiding in the jungle, feeding off plants, waiting for the airplanes to arrive so he could mooch off the _Americanos, maybe even hitching a ride with them back to their country. He wanted no delays. Delays would be costly, and he needed that money to pay off a few debts and loans, as well as changing his name to something less stereotypically New World Spanish._

Over a week later, at about the time Richley and his cronies were turning in for a good night's sleep before the big day, the _Diablos En La Obscuridad struck. One of the workers, sleepless from the excitement of finally returning to the mainland (and getting paid!), was nervously flickering his lighter on and off. He had nothing to use it on, since he had smoke his last cigarette within two days on the island, but he found the flame hypnotically reassuring. Only, as he walked near the jungle, the light caught something and reflected off of it. Intrigued, the worker took a step back, and kept his lighter on instead of flickering it on and off again. The flame indeed caught two objects. They were located at the same height. They seemed yellow (though it could have been the light), and had a black slit running through it in the middle. They were eyes. As the hapless man realized this, another series of objects caught the flame. Beneath the eyes, a long row of pearly whites. _

The others heard a brief scream cut off by what sounded like someone gargling himself. Still, a scream was a scream, and one didn't survive in the streets of San José, Costa Rica, by ignoring screams, no matter how short. Within seconds everyone was on his feet, trying to assess the situation in the darkness. A second scream was heard, uninterrupted and clearly laced with pain and terror. Only this one had come from the beach, not the jungle. Whatever it was that was causing the screams, there was more of it. This realization sent the workers stampeding towards the boat, even though the last scream had come from that direction.

Sanchez came rushing out of his tent (the only one in the group) at that instant, waving his flashlight (also the only one in the group). The light briefly caught on something sharp, serrated and shiny, as another scream was heard and _Diablo Number One took another victim. Sanchez decided he did not like what he had seen, and followed his men to the boats._

The first workman to reach the boats leaped in without any preamble. He began to feel his way to the motor (he touched the radio instead, the only one in the group), when he felt a pair of sharp pains, one in his belly and another at his throat. An observer here would be thankful it was night-time, and the red waters below the unfortunate's severed head could not be seen.

While _Diablo Number Two fed (they could hear the crunching sounds now) the other workmen piled into the two remaining boats, pulled the motor, and speed away in no direction other than Away-From-Isla. Sanchez, who had begun his desperate dash after the rest of his men, stopped when his feet hit the waters. Standing there, waving his arms furiously, he screamed at the men to come back (which they sensibly did not). Then he felt a force hit him from behind, smashing him against the waves. His mouth was open from shouting and he swallowed a lot of water, but a moment later, as either Jungle __Diablo or Beach __Diablo began tearing at his back, he found himself wishing he had drowned._


	2. Sections 05 to 12 - Lunch Guest

Disclaimer: John Hammond, InGen, Jurassic Park, Isla Nebular and Isla Sorna are all things that I have unconscionably stolen from Michael Crichton's novels Jurassic Park and The Lost World, as well as the movies of the same name. I have drawn on both forms of media (the books and the movies) for this story. It does not follow one or the other specifically… it is implied that John Hammond is still alive in this story, but I use dinosaur elements from the books… and a few that were in neither. None of the characters from Jurassic Park or Lost World, in either variation, appear in this story. Instead, I have chosen to plunk down a new set of characters on the island. The events described take place sometime between the Jurassic Park Incident and the San Diego Incident. Well, I guess that's all there is to say, except… enjoy the story.

#### Los Cinquo Muertes

##### Chapter 1: Survey

**In this instalment:**

5. The Gang's All Here****

6. Landing

7. Lunch Guest

8. In-flight Dinner

9. The Natives Are Missing

10. Gather 'Round the Campfire

11. Alice Makes a Discovery

12. Gather 'Round the Cage

**5**

THE GANG'S ALL HERE

Two planes flew in tandem over the Pacific Ocean, glistening in the noon sun. Out of one of the portholes, Richley stared at the watery desert flying under him. Then he returned his gaze to the other plane. That plane carried everything that the team would need on this mission: provisions, fresh water, the jeeps and the trailers, the communications system, and half-a-dozen foldable shelters along with other various little tidbits that might be needed during the charting process. The other plane, the one he was in, carried the personnel. There was his team, eleven people (including his daughter, who by now had participated in enough expeditions to also be considered a veteran, even though she was only sixteen) who had been with Richley in most of his expeditions. Benny the biologist; P.J., an expert hunter; Ramanta Soles, team cartographer and (supposedly) cook; Peitro Folker, the botanist; Lorkon Carlson, the team's technologist. The other four were strong arms (or generalists, as they preferred to be called). Stanley, Peter, Calvin and John, while far from being dumb (there's no room for stupidity when in possibly hostile surroundings), and having some useful skills in the field, were clearly selected to be workhorses. 

The soldiers were also onboard, all four of them. There were actually six soldiers on the plane, but the pilot and co-pilot would stay with the plane while the team would venture out into the island. The second plane would leave to get more supplies and return in about a week. Corporal Meiller, a no-nonsense man who had risen through the ranks a little faster than one might expect, led the military team.

Also present was the government attaché, one Daria Ellis. Richley and his team had met her at the San Diego air base, from where the planes had been launched. She was dressed in an informal one-piece jacket and skirt, which stopped shortly after her knees, with a white blouse and a tie (navy blue, like her jacket/skirt). Definitely not attire for exploring unknown territory. When Richley had pointed that out to her, she had replied in a brisk but casual tone that she would "change into a more suitable outfit once we had reached the destination".

Richley felt that in general, the team did not like her. When she had brought her suitcase on board, Peter Jaminson, P.J. to his friends, had asked her what she had brought in there, a make-up saloon? When Ellis replied that she had brought only the essentials, P.J. answered, "Like I said, a make-up saloon". P.J. was an expert hunter, and as such had saved the team from every animal there was. The only thing the team hadn't been saved of was his irascible attitude.

Richley left the window and returned to his seat. Then, to his neighbour, he said: 

"How you holding up, Benny?"

"I keep saying to you, if man was meant to fly, he would have been born with a stronger stomach. Why couldn't we take the boat, man?" answered Benjamin Dougan, a.k.a. Benny.

"Because a boat would have taken too much time. Besides, you would have bored us to death naming every species of fish and bird we saw." 

Benny was the team biologist, an expert on fauna throughout the world. His knowledge of animals and lichens gave him the ability to be able to survive in almost any environment, desert or jungle. The only environment Benny was uncomfortable in was in the airs. 

"This is the Captain speaking," Linda Howshenski's voice came over the intercom. "Were about to encounter some turbulence, so make sure both you and any fragile equipment are strapped in." 

The passengers barely had time to buckle-up when the plane started rocking. 

"Ohhh, man," Benny whined.

"Relax, Benny," said Alice, sitting on the biologist's other side. "Think of it as a roller coaster ride." 

Benny and Alice had been friends ever since Benny joined the team when he was seventeen, and Alice was eleven. Back then, Benny would call her "the Kid", a name which Alice had absolutly detested. In return, she started calling him Benny, instead of Benjamin (which he preferred) and the name had stuck with the rest of the team.

"Yeah, well, I hate roller coaster rides." Then the plane went down sharply, and Benny got up, holding his stomach, and muttered an apology as he raced towards the bathroom.

Once the rolling stopped, P.J. rose from his seat and sat down in Benny's next to Richley. Alice, who had never liked the hunter (male chauvinist pig), turned away and put on her Walkman.

"So, boss," he said in that soft hardened voice that only he could manage. "Do you got the wildlife specs on this island were visiting?"

"Right here." Richley bent down and picked up his bag. He protruded from the bag a copy of a report made on the island by the Costa Rican government. P.J. took it, and then flipped slowly through the sheets. Finally, he asked: 

"How long ago was this report made?"

"In 1991. What do you think?"

"Shouldn't be a problem unless one of us is allergic to iguanas. This is going to be a pretty boring trip."

**6**

LANDING

Except for a very narrow beach and several grassy clearings, most of the island was jungle. Since the planes could not land on trees, the U.S. government had a group of Costa Rican workers go out to the island as soon as the project was green lighted. There, the workers had cleared out a section of the jungle near the beach and installed a temporary runway. These workers had just left recently, and their boat had neither the speed nor the radio that would have been needed to alert the authorities that five of their number had disappeared, victims of what the superstitious workers were now calling the _Diablos En La Obscuridad. So the planes arrived at the island unaware of the dangers they might be facing. _

As they neared the island, Richley accepted Captain Howshenski's offer to join them in the cockpit. Richley greeted Linda and her co-pilot, Darren Husser, and then peered through the cockpit window. The island was there all right, and he could catch another one of the five out of the corner of his eyes. A large (and thankfully now-inactive) volcano had formed it, and so a mountain that rose about 200 meters above sea level, with almost purplish sides, dominated the island landscape. The jungle seemed to take up almost everything else, from the foot of the mountain to the beaches. Though, Richley knew from old satellite photos, there were several large clearings near bodies of water that would serve as home base for the settlers. Speaking of clearings…

"Is that our runway?" Richley asked, pointing to a strip of grey that stood out like a blister against the green of the jungle and the sandy brown of the beach.

"Yep. No sign of the construction crew, though. Probably wanted to leave before we got here, so they wouldn't have to listen to us scream at them for doing such a shoddy job."

Richley frowned. "They did a bad job? It isn't safe to land?"

"Oh, it's safe to land, I'm sure. It's just a little shorter than expected, that's all. And now, sir, if you would please regain your seat…"

"Right." Richley answered, and was gone.

The cargo plane attempted to land first, as a precaution, though it proved to be unnecessary. At the end of the runway, the landed cargo plane turned into a clearing that had been made for just that purpose. Then the passenger plane set down on the runway with no problems other than the annoying chatter of Benny's teeth.

When Richley came out of the plane, he could practically smell the pure, fresh air, untouched by the industrial world's pollutants, mixed with the salty smell of the nearby ocean. Once at the bottom of the stairs, he threw his bag down and stretched, a method he found was a very good combatant against jetlag. Nearby, the runway turned into rough, freshly cleared ground, and near that, the sandy beach started.

Behind Richley, his daughter came down, eyes fixated on the roaring waves of the Pacific Ocean.

"Wow. A beach! I'm sorry I forgot to bring my bikini."

"You and me both," replied Benny, giddy to have returned to solid earth.

"Oh, shut up," Alice told him in a mock-reprisal tone of voice.

Pretty soon everyone had climbed down from the airplane, and was either stretching, enjoying the view, or pretending that they were rummaging through their bags for either their sunglasses or suntan lotion. Everyone? No. Richley noticed that the governmental attaché had not yet left the plane. 

He climbed back onboard the plane but did not see her.

"Ms. Ellis?"

"Over here," came a muffled reply from the back of the plane. "I'm just changing, I'll be out in a second." 

When, in fact, she did come out of the bathroom, it took all of Richley's self control not to laugh out loud. She no longer looked as if she was preparing for a conference in Washinton, but like she was preparing for Operation: Desert Storm. She was dressed in a faded brown coverall, with patches of green and dark brown all over the uniform. Her hair had been pulled into a bun at the back of her head. She was also wearing tall, black, military boots.

Richley's team, however, did not have the same self-control as he did. So when Ellis left the plane, she was greeted by laughter, hooting and hollering. Benny even gave her an exaggerated military salute, then grinned sheepishly as he realised he was standing next to one of the soldiers. Ellis' jaw set and her eyes hardened, but she did not make any sort of reply or comment. She just kept on walking towards the cargo plane, where the pilot and co-pilot had already started unloading equipment.

**7**

LUNCH GUEST

After the team had finished unpacking the jeeps, trailers and various scientific equipment, they all sat down to a delicious lunch of canned beans and frozen sausages, watered down by some nice 2000 Eau de Source (a very good vintage), all prepared by the extraordinary cooking skills of Ramanta Soles (the team cartographer). After lunch and the complaints that naturally followed, the team boarded the jeeps, attached the trailers who were now filled with the aforementioned equipment, and set off into the jungle. 

However, while the group was having lunch, a curious animal came out of the woods. Being careful to steer clear from the noise the humans were making (it didn't recognize the humans, but it recognized noise), the animal wandered into the cargo plane. So when the cargo plane took off shortly after the charting team entered the jungle, it did so with a clandestine passenger roaming the back of the plane.

**8**

IN-FLIGHT DINNER

Barely half an hour after the plane left, the pilot turned the control over to the co-pilot to go tend to nature's needs. However, as soon as he closed the bathroom door, he heard a faint hooting sound, like a cross between a bird and an owl. He opened the door quickly, but didn't see anything that could have produced that sound. The pilot called out: 

"Frank, was that you?"

"What was?" came the reply from the cockpit.

By then, the pilot though that he must of imagined the noise.

"Never mind."

But then he heard it again. It was not coming from the front of the plane, where Frank was, but from the recently emptied back. Slowly, his gun drawn, the pilot advanced into the rear. 

The beast was there, no longer bothering to hide, standing in the middle of the storage area. The pilot was surprised that he hadn't seen it on his way to the bathroom. It stood a meter tall on two legs, with green, leathery skin and a pair of small forearms. Two crests in a V formation adorned the creature's head, and through the partly open mouth, the pilot could see a few rows of sharp teeth.

Recognising a carnivore if nothing else, the pilot brought his gun to bear on the beast, who in return simply cocked his head sideways like an inquiring puppy and went on looking at him, as if examining him.

"What are you?" the pilot asked the beast, even though he didn't expect a reply.

But, unfortunately for him, he got one. For you see, the animal had not eaten in some time and it had just determined that the pilot would make a good snack. From both sides of the neck area, a multi-coloured gill sprang into view. The pilot, startled, was not able to react before the hissing beast spit out a thick, sticky, black liquid onto his face. Blinded and burning from the liquid, the pilot screamed and fired several gunshots randomly. But none of the bullets came close to hitting the creature, which then jumped on his prey and, mercifully, started his meal with the neck.

Meanwhile, Frank Debner, the co-pilot, heard both the gunshots and the scream. Debner drew his weapon and called out his friend's name while rushing to the aft section of the plane. There he found the pilot serving as main course for the spitter-thing, who did not appreciate his meal being interrupted. Just as Debner, over his initial surprise, levelled his weapon, the beast spat again. Luckily for Debner, his army training made him move automatically when he saw something, anything, being shot at him. He avoided the liquid, which he heard hitting the floor behind him, and shot the beast several times. Debner was happy to find out that whatever it was, it wasn't bullet-proof. The spitter-thing died quickly of a whole clip shot into various parts of its body.

Shaken up by his encounter, Frank did the only natural thing for him: he returned to the cockpit, sat back down, and checked the instruments. It was then that he realised that the instruments weren't responding. Rushing back to the scene of the carnage, Frank inspected the floor where the spitter-thing's liquid had hit it. The liquid had, in fact, seeped through the floor and somehow clogged up (_or burnt through, Frank though, __no telling how acidic that stuff was) the delicate machinery that controlled the plane. In fact, if he remembered his plane schematics correctly, the fuel valve was under there. So that meant that the engines were not being fuelled, and henceforth not turning._

From looking out the window, he could tell that the plane was losing altitude fast. Debner grabbed a small, waterproof radio, an inflatable raft, a life jacket and a parachute. He gave one last look at the carcass of the spitter-thing (which he later found out was a Dilophosaurus) resting on his friend's body and debated whether he should do anything. Finally, he decided not to move the two cadavers, because a) they were already dead and b) there might be acid. Frank Debner jumped out of the doomed plane. 

**9******

THE NATIVES ARE MISSING

Back on the island, the charting team was proceeding along at a slow and steady pace. The team was composed of four jeeps, with four passengers each. Each jeep had one of the three trailers attached to it, except for the first one, because that jeep did most of the bushwhacking and it was the drivers of that jeep (the four muscle men: Stanley, Peter, Calvin and John) who usually cleared any obstacle. The trailers themselves were cluttered with scientific equipment and the various odds and ends that the team would eventually need.

Richley, his daughter and P.J drove the second jeep, the first one with a trailer. The jeep had previously been occupied by Benny, who, as predicted, started getting carsick. The team, fed up with his whining, relocated him to the trailer they were pulling, where Benny found a small corner by the window where he could look out at the rushing plant life.

Carlson, with Ellis riding shotgun, drove the third jeep. In the backseat, both the passengers were looking at the scenery and concentrating hard: Soles was making a mental map, cataloguing the various turns and twists that the travelers had to take in order to avoid particularly dense areas of the jungle; whilst Folker tried his best to identify every species of plants he could see.

Corporal Meiller and his soldiers were in a jeep by themselves, of course.

The three remaining occupants of the second jeep drove in relative silence, Richley focussing on the newly formed road, P.J. staring out into the jungle and Alice listing to her Walkman. Finaly, P.J. told Richley: 

"Hey, boss, have you noticed the lack of wildlife." 

It was a statement, not a question, but Richley nodded an affirmative anyway and replied: 

"It could be that, despite our best efforts, we're making too much noise and scaring the wildlife away. Or, it may be that they are there, but they blend in with the decor too well for us to see them. Also, it could be that this area is unfrequented by the locals. Still, there could be no more wildlife left on this island at all."

P.J. admitted these were possibilities, but did not seem convinced. And the team drove on…

**10**

GATHER 'ROUND THE CAMPFIRE

At around seven p.m., local time, the team stopped in what was, at best, an opening in the jungle. They put the trailers together in a semi-circle, and in the middle of that circle, they sat down to yet another of Soles' culinary delights. The conversation slowly drifted from the latest hit movie to the island.

"Well, the day after tomorrow, according to the satellite photos, we should reach a clearing. From there we can set up the radar pole and check out the rest of the island for at least 50 miles." Said Ramanta, the cartographer.

"I still think we should climb the mountain," said Pietro Folker, the team botanist and resident anti-tech. "From there we can look at the whole island without use of possibly unreliable technology."

"I'd trust my machinery before I would trust either your or my eyes. They can see a lot more than normal vision can, like, for example, infrared to track the animals on the island… if there are any that is. I still haven't seen as much as a lizard," replied Lorkon Carlson, the team technician. "Besides, if we try to go up there, we would have to abandon the trailers and soon after that the jeeps."

"So? It looks to me like a little exercise would do you good," Folker said uncharitably, loathing the idea of admitting that he was wrong.

Carlson immediately became red with anger and embarrassment. If there was something he hated more than anything, it was being made fun of because of his chubbiness. He rose and started towards Folker, who stood up to met the challenge.

"Hey!" exclaimed Richley, stepping between the two men. "Stop it you two or I'll put you in a trailer with Benny." 

The threat caused both to return to their place grudgingly. Richley shook his head. Folker and Carlson were always fighting, not only because of their opposite jobs, but because of their opposite personalities. Folker was rash, and rarely thought before he acted. Carlson, on the contrary, was relatively timid, speaking out only when spoken to or when his machines were concerned. The only thing that they shared was a passion for exploration and a tendency at getting hot under the collar for no good reasons. 

As Richley sat back down, Benny, next to him, murmured: 

"That was a cheap shot."

"Hey, it worked, didn't it?"

**11**

ALICE MAKES A DISCOVERY

Alice was the only one not sitting in the circle. She didn't like the routine "chats around the fire" that the team held when they ate. No matter what the subject, the conversation would always turn towards work, and then Folker and Carlson would argue about methods of doing something until someone intervened. Besides, she wasn't especially fond of canned beans. So she sat in a corner near the forest edge, nursing a bag of chips that she had managed to smuggle on one of the trailers (her father was a real anti-junk food activist). She watched the whole confrontation, not hearing what it was about because she was wearing her Walkman.

Unknown to her, a small reptile, intrigued by the noise, had come out of the jungle barely a meter away from her. It slowly approached the strange beast in front of it, sniffed around, and located what looked like food.

After witnessing the fight, Alice turned back towards her bag of chips. She almost put her hand in before realising that the bag was moving. At first she though it was the wind, but she quickly dismissed that thought, not feeling any breeze on her skin. Once Alice turned off her Walkman, she could hear small squeaking sounds coming from the bag and the distinctive cracking of chips. 

For an instant, Alice considered leaving the bag there and running towards the rest of the team. But her curiosity as to whatever was in the bag overcame the urge to run. Slowly, she approached her hands to the opening of the bag. Then, quickly, she grabbed it, sealing off the opening, and holding so the opening was on the top. Instantly, the thing in the bag started squealing even louder, and trashing about. But, to Alice's relief, the creature could not reach the opening.

Holding the chips away from her body, Alice jogged towards the team and called out to Benny: 

"I got something! Quick, Benny, get a cage!"

Benny rose from the circle, as did everybody else, and ran towards one of the trailers to retrieve a cage. In less than a minute, by which time everybody was puzzling over what could be in the bag of chips, Benny returned with a small cage. He put it on a table and opened the top. Once over the cage, Alice simultaneously opened the bag and tuned it upside-down. The animal inside, unable to get a grasp in the slick bag of chips, fell straight into the cage. 

Finally, everybody could get a good look at the creature. It was definitely reptilian, bipedal and small, with green-yellow skin. It bounced around the cage searching for a way out of the prison, squeaking like crazy. Finally, someone asked Benny in a hushed tone:

"What is it?"

And Benny, to everybody's shock, replied: 

"I don't know."

**12**

GATHER 'ROUND THE CAGE

The five of them were gathered around the cage to make a decision on what to do, if anything, about the creature. There was Richley, the team leader, Ellis, the governmental attaché, Benny, the biologist, P.J., also an animal expert, if a different kind, and Alice, who justified her presence at the meeting by being the creature's discoverer. Corporal Meiller stood just off to the side, not participating in the conversation but making his presence known by hovering nearby. All the others had been sent away so as the ruling team would not be disturbed. The animal, so as to be still while they examined it, had been chloroformed. Benny had imbued a cotton ball with the liquid then dropped it through the bars.

"Its skin blends in ideally with the background, that's way we didn't see any of them before," said P.J.

"We have to find more," said Ellis. "If were going to establish a colony on this island, were going to have to know all about this animal: What it is, what their population is, where their territory is, and whether it's dangerous to humans."

"Dangerous? Are you kidding? It's cute!" chimed in Alice.

"It's obviously a predator," said P.J., lifting the beast's gums with a stick (he didn't want to run the risk of it waking up with a few finger in bite range) and revealing the little sharp teeth in the creature's mouth. "However, I don't think it can be dangerous to us."

"Think again," said Benny. "Look at these little bulges on the side of its mouth. Those are venom pockets. This thing is poisonous."

"How poisonous?" asked Richley, frowning at Alice for picking up the animal.

"I can't tell right away. I'd have to extract some of its venom and analyse it."

"Then do it. Meanwhile," Richley said to P.J. and Ellis, "Tell the rest of the team what we know about this thing and tell them that if they see any more, not to approach it unless they have suitable means to capture it." 

He started to walk away, but then he turned back around and added with wry humour: 

"Also, remind them that a bag of chips is not considered suitable means of capture."

And, with a smile on his face, he walked away.


	3. Sections 12 to 19 - The Clearing

Disclaimer: John Hammond, InGen, Jurassic Park, Isla Nebular and Isla Sorna are all things that I have unconscionably stolen from Michael Crichton's novels Jurassic Park and The Lost World, as well as the movies of the same name. I have drawn on both forms of media (the books and the movies) for this story. It does not follow one or the other specifically… it is implied that John Hammond is still alive in this story, but I use dinosaur elements from the books… and a few that were in neither. None of the characters from Jurassic Park or Lost World, in either variation, appear in this story. Instead, I have chosen to plunk down a new set of characters on the island. The events described take place sometime between the Jurassic Park Incident and the San Diego Incident. Well, I guess that's all there is to say, except… enjoy the story.

#### Los Cinquo Muertes

##### Chapter 1: Survey

**In this instalment:**

13. Speech Time

14. Night Terrors

15. Distribution

16. Mud in your Eye

17. Moving On…

18. The Clearing

19. Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch…

**13**

SPEECH TIME

As the sun dipped below the horizon, the survey team stopped again this time not to eat but to rest. The group displayed the trailers in the same semi-circle as they had at diner, with the jeeps completing the circle. Inside the circle, the restless charting team still talked and went on with their activities, either studying what they had gathered as info on the island during the day or preparing the foldable shelters for the night. 

Contrary to diner, the conversations were kept low and subdued, and they rarely had more than three or four participants. P.J. and the soldiers (who had not yet addressed anybody else than P.J.) were discussing the tactical advantages and disadvantages of the terrain of the island. Benny was still in the Research and Machinery trailer, analysing the venom retrieved from the small animal. As for the creature, it was still in its cage, awake but motionless, frequently visited (from a reasonable distance) by members of the team.

Alice was sitting against a tree, listening to her Walkman, when her father sat down next to her. _Uh-ho, she thought, __speech time._

"So," said Richley, "How's it going?" 

"Fine, dad."

"Look, I don't think you should have done what you did at diner. So don't do it again. It could be dangerous."

"Daaad, please, lay off. I'm not a little girl anymore. I can take care of myself."

"You could have been killed! We have absolutely no idea how poisonous that thing is!" 

"I was in control of the situation the whole time," Alice lied. "It didn't surprise me, I surprised it. You have to learn that I'm not going to refrain from doing anything just because it could be risky!"

"Damn it, Alice, I don't want to lose you too!" 

Alice was shocked. Her father very rarely spoke of her mother's death. She knew he still blames himself, even though there was no way he could have prevented anything. Alice was groping for words, trying to form a response but found herself unable to reply. Luckily, she didn't have to, because at that moment Benny came rushing out of the trailer, a vial in his hands.

"I got it! I got it! Tiny, I know what it is!"

"What's 'Tiny'?" asked Richley.

"Oh, um, well, Alice nicknamed the thing Tiny."

Richley simply shook his head.

Very soon the whole group had formed around Benny, eager to know whether the thing was inoffensive or whether they had been harbouring a killer. Richley, Ellis and P.J. were at the front of the wave. Benny addressed Richley but spoke loud enough so that everybody could hear.

"I was able to extract some of the venom and analyse it. It's a mild anaesthetic. If just one of those things bit you, you might feel just a little bit tired. So there's no danger there. Thing is, if it's a pack hunter, and I think it is, the bite of thirty of those creatures combined could knock you out so bad that you wouldn't even feel 'em pecking at you."

The team turned in unison towards the small beast in its cage with newfound respect. Then, Ellis spoke up: 

"So these things are dangerous then. Were going to have to exterminated them before we bring people over here to settle."

"I wouldn't say exterminate," said Benny, who, as a biologist, was also an animal rights activist. "That would be genocide. Sure, we'll have to be careful about them now, but I'm sure we can find some kind of antidote that would permit the people of this island to not fall asleep after being bitten. And I don't think that these little critters would attack themselves to something that wasn't asleep."

"Well," interceded Richley. "That decision will be taken in the future. For now though, everybody carries a pistol and if they see any of those things, it's a shoot on site. Understood?" The group nodded. "Good. For now I recommend we all go to bed. We're going to have a busy day tomorrow, and I want everybody to be in top condition." Then, almost as an afterthought, he added: "And remember to seal your shelters." 

"Yeah," P.J. muttered. "We don't want to 'rest in pieces' "

**14******

NIGHT TERRORS

A roaring sound stirred Richley from his sleep on their second night on the island. Bewildered by the sudden wake-up call, Richley looked around him in confusion. It took a moment before Richley recognized the flat, grey walls of the shelter. It was a small, enclosed metal box, whose flat surface was broken only by the four protruding bunks, two on each side. Everything, the bunks and the walls, could be folded so that all four shelters took only a few square meters of space in the Communications trailer.

From under him, Richley heard Benny mutter in a small, muffled voice: 

"What? What was that? Who called?"

"That wasn't a phone, Benny," said P.J., rising from his bunk.

"It sounded more like some kind of animal," suggested Richley.

"Was prob'ly Folker snoring," mumbled the sleepy Benny.

"Was not. It woke me up too," said Folker.

Then the same sound, this time clearly an animal roar, came again. Almost in unison, the four men jumped from their bunks and opened the shelter's doors. Outside, the cool night-time air and a gentle drizzle greeted Richley. He could see that the occupants of the shelter in front of them, namely Alice, Ellis and Soles, had also exited their tent to see what the noise was all about. But except for each other, the team members could not see anything except the jungle.

The team slowly drew together, hoping that someone would be able to explain what had just happened. But no one could. So they turned back towards the forest, hoping to hear the sound again. Softly, Alice said to Benny:

"Nice Kermit the Frog pyjamas."

"Shut up," Benny answered, although Alice could not tell whether it was because Benny was irritated or if he was trying to hear something. 

But the sound did not come again, and slowly, the explorers returned to their shelters for a night of restless sleep.

**15**

DISTRIBUTION

"Good morning, Tiny! And how are we today? Want some breakfast? Yes? Well, look what I got for you! Chips!"

Richley shook his head. He couldn't believe that Alice was talking to the beast. Pretty soon she would be asking if she could keep it as a pet! Richley yawned. He hadn't gotten much sleep after yesterday's incident. And in the few moments that he did manage to sleep, he was assaulted by dreams of a gigantic, roaring Tiny attacking his daughter.

It must have rained a lot last night because the terrain had become swampy. Mud stuck relentlessly to Richley's boots. He made himself a mental note not to sit on the ground for breakfast (canned beans). 

As Richley chewed, he was approached by P.J. who said: 

"Boss, I've got to tell you, that thing we heard yesterday really worries me. It takes something pretty damn big to make that kind of sound. There's nothing of that size written on the charts here," P.J. said, holding up the Costa Rican report on the islands of 1991. "But then again, Tiny and his species weren't written here either. So from now on, I'm asking that everybody carry a rifle. Here is yours."

And with that, P.J. handed Richley a rifle. Richley, who had his plate in one hand, his fork in the other and a mouth full of food, made a small head gesture to a nearby tree. Understanding, P.J. propped the rifle against the tree and walked back to the trailer. Richley had been the last one to get his rifle, but only because P.J. could not find him earlier. Then, he heard Alice calling him: 

"Yo, P.J., how come I didn't get a rifle?"

She sounded both hurt and annoyed at the same time. Hurt if he had done on purpose not to give her one, annoyed if it had simply been an oversight. She felt her heart sink when he replied: 

"For the same reasons you don't give a monkey an armed grenade."

"Hey, I've shot things before!"

"Yeah? Who?" came the smug reply. Frustrated, Alice stormed away. 

**16**

MUD IN YOUR EYE

After breakfast, the team started moving again. This time, it was even more difficult to drive and clear the passage because the rainfalls last night made the ground muddy. On more than one occasion, a jeep or a trailer would get stuck in the mud, and the whole team would have to stop while P.J., the workmen and the soldiers tried to lift the vehicle out of the silt. The sides of the trailers, before a uniform white, were now spotted from the mud thrown upwards by the big wheels.

Ellis, riding in the same jeep as Richley, P.J. and Alice, pointed out to the team leader: 

"If the ground becomes all muddy like this every time it rains, it could pose a serious problem in establishing a colony here. All buildings would have to be built deep in the ground, and transportation would be very difficult."

"Maybe not," answered Richley. "It could be that we arrived on this island during monsoon period. I would have to check the charts for that. And even if the ground conditions here are unstable, I'm sure there's a way to fix it."

"Besides," said Alice, "It's just a little mud. It can't hurt you."

Just then the jeep dipped suddenly into a mud hole, coming to a halt and splattering the occupants of the jeep with silt.

"I stand corrected," said Alice, wiping mud off of her face.

**17**

MOVING ON…

It took twenty minutes to get the jeep out of the mud hole. This, combined with other such incidents, slowed the group down considerably. It was about 1 p.m. and everybody was hungering for lunch. But since the corridor they were driving in was too narrow to stop, they moved on, hoping that they would reach the clearing soon. When they did, it was about two o'clock in the afternoon… 

**18**

THE CLEARING

When, ahead of him, the jungle seemed to clear up, Richley was overjoyed. They all needed to stop to eat and stretch their legs. Finally, the front jeep burst out of the jungle. It rode on for as much distance that was necessary to let the other jeeps and trailers come out, and then came to a stop. Richley and the other followed suit and said hello to the sun, which they hadn't seen in quite some time. They all slowly disembarked, stretching, snapping bones and cracking knuckles. In front of them, they could see a portion of the clearing, grassland that went on for at least two kilometres before reverting back to jungle form. The high weeds that covered the plain reached up to right under their knees. Some sat, getting ready for dinner, others just stood and stared.

Folker was the only one who kept on walking right around the bend in the jungle. He wanted to see what the rest of the clearing looked like. Shortly after he became out of view to the rest of the group, they heard him cry out: 

"What the hell is that?!"

As one the group stood up and jogged towards the spot where Folker had disappeared. They found him staring in amazement at what he saw before him.

In front of them was a small lake, about a few dozen meters across. The sides of the lake were bordered by tall pussy willows. The lake itself was clear limpid water, untouched by the pollution of mankind. Several lily pads floated on the surface of the lake. All in all, a very picturesque setting. However, it was not the lake that had shocked the charting group, but the animals that were drinking from it.

A herd of three-horned quadrupedal beasts were taking turns sapping up the water. They were about 9 meters from head to tail (literally), and stood as tall as an ordinary man. Their skin was coloured in various shades of grey. Its most prominent feature was, however, its head. The head started in a scissor like beak and ended in a bony, spiked neck frill. Above each eye, two large, well-developed horns protruded from its skin. There was a smaller horn on top of what passed for its nose. Occasionally, one of the beasts would emit a low bellowing noise to one of its companions.

The three-horns weren't these only creatures at the watering hole. There was also a single quadrupedal creature that seemed to be wearing armour. It was about 7 meters long and reached up to a normal man's shoulders. It sported the same pointed beak as the three-horns. Its entire backside was covered with ridged armour plated with small spikes on them. It's tail ended in a massive, bony club. Its skin was coloured in various shades of brown.

While others simply stared in awe, Benny biologist's mind automatically searched his memory and pulled out the species' names. The three-horns were Triceratops. The armour-plated creature was called Ankylosaurus. But, while one part of his mind recognized these species, another said it was impossible. After all, these things were dinosaurs. Creatures that had not been seen on the surface of the earth for sixty five million years. That's a hell of a long time!

All of the other members of the expedition, thought they did not remember the species' names, recognized them for what they were: creatures that were supposed to be extinct, yet alive and well in front of them.

P.J., like everybody else, recognised the dinosaurs, but his mind raced forward to the implications created by this discovery. If there are dinosaurs here, there must be more on the island. Tiny must also be a dinosaur. An entire prehistoric ecosystem, with herbivores like these things. And carnivores like Tiny. Carnivores. That though struck him and would not let go. Every ecosystem has its predators, and P.J. remembers the dinosaur predators he saw in pictures as being most ferocious beasts. This was a watering hole, where herbivores came in great numbers. And great numbers of herbivores would, of course, attract carnivores. Predators.

P.J. ran up to Richley, who was still staring dumbstruck at the drinking dinosaurs.

"Boss, we gotta get outta here. Now!"

"What?" whispered Richley, as if he was afraid that a loud noise might scare away the beasts, his eyes never leaving the prehistoric spectacle in front of him.

"These are dinosaurs, right? A dinosaur ecosystem. Does the word 'Tyrannosaurus' ring a bell?"

P.J. now had Richley's full attention. 

"Are you saying that there might be one goddamn large meat-eating monster loose on this island?"

Richley question was answer fast enough, but not by P.J. From the distance, the same roaring sound as the night before was heard. But last night, that sound had been little more than a curiosity to Richley. Now, it was a death threat. The roaring rang out again, even louder this time, which meant that whatever it was, it was getting closer.

Every part of Richley was screaming at him. His instinct of self-preservation screamed at him, telling him to flee. His parental instinct screamed at him, telling him the get Alice away from this place. His sense of duty screamed at him to evacuate the team fast. But the following scream wasn't his.

The head of the soldiers was Corporal Meiller. He had overheard P.J.'s and Richley's conversation, and then put two and two together when he heard the roar. He spoke to the group for the first time since the start of the expedition. His voice was one that was used to giving orders and used to having those orders carried out.

"Everybody back to the jeeps, now!" 

As if it had been them who had been addressed, the Triceratops suddenly stopped drinking, howled, and broke out into a frenzied run to the other side of the clearing.

The members of the team were all very bright, and it only took that little encouragement to send them rushing towards their vehicles. All sixteen humans present were running through the grass as if their lives depended on it. Which, Richley reflected, they might very well do.

"Everybody," screamed P.J., "Follow the animals, they know where to go." 

During the mad race, Richley kept searching for his daughter. When he finally found her, he came up besides her and pointed to the second jeep. Alice nodded her agreement. As soon as Richley jumped over the jeep's door he started the car. As soon as he had assured himself that Alice and two other people were in (wouldn't want to leave anybody behind), he accelerated the jeep towards the other end of the clearing, the trailer cutting a clear trail in the high grass.

Out of their habit of protecting other people, P.J., two soldiers and Meiller automatically headed towards the last jeep, which, according to the directions of the sounds, was the one that was in the most danger. (The third soldier had fled in the first jeep; the dazed man would later get a stern reproach for this from the Corporal.) No one even bothered to open a door, they all simply leaped inside, with Meiller at the wheel. He started the car and accelerated, but nothing happened. The wheels on the jeep were turning, whipping the ground, but they weren't advancing. P.J., in the backseat, looked behind him and located the problem. One of the trailer's wheels had sunk in so deep into the mud that only the top emerged. P.J. threw himself on the jeep's attachment, which permitted it to carry a trailer. The trailer segment was attached to the jeep segment with several clamps. Working furiously, P.J. fumbled with the clamps, trying to get them open. There was about one left when he looked up towards the jungle. A massive dark shape of crashing trees was heading right for him. He unhooked the last clamp, and the jeep accelerated away. The hunter nearly fell off so sudden was the start.

And not a second too soon, for shortly after P.J. heard a massive crunching sound. The trailer's behind lifted into the airs and was shortly followed by the rest of the vehicle. Meiller swerved violently, narrowly avoiding the falling trailer as it crashed into the ground in an orgy of noise and broken glass. P.J., still on the jeep's attachment, climbed back into the car and looked at the beast that had been powerful enough to send the large trailer into the airs like a vulgar piece of paper.

P.J. recognised the beast from drawings he had seen during his life. Tyrannosaurus Rex, king of all hunters, largest predator to ever have stalked the Earth. It was twelve meters long and as high as several men standing on each other's shoulders. Running at a 20-mile-an-hour pace on its strong muscular hind legs, the creature inspired both fear and respect (though mostly fear) in P.J. and all who dared turn around to see their pursuer. His tail and small arms perfectly balanced the Tyrannosaurus. Rows of teeth as big as bananas decorated the creature's powerful jaws while the Tyrannosaurus' forward looking eyes only had one target in sight: the jeep.

"Holy shit!" cried out Soles, in the second jeep with Alice, Carlson and Richley. The occupants of the jeep stared in horror as the fourth jeep struggled to escape the Tyrannosaurus. Even Richley, intent on getting out of the clearing as fast as possible, couldn't help looking at the unfolding drama in his rear-view mirror.

Meiller cursed a blue streak as he attempted to get the jeep to go faster. The shift was at its maximum position, yet still the car went barely fast enough to avoid getting caught by the pursuing monster. There must have been some mud trapped in the controls. The soldier next to P.J. in the backseat unslung his rifle and aimed at the beast. The shot went wild, barely grazing the Tyrannosaur's flank. Thinking he might get a better shot, the soldier rose from his seat. 

Just then the jeep hit a bump, and the soldier lost his balance. He fell but was able to hang on to the back of the jeep. P.J. was about to pull him up when the Tyrannosaurus swung down his massive head and clamped down his jaws. The soldier screamed in pain for his foot had disappeared into the beast's mouth. He lost his hold on the back of the jeep and hung by his leg from the creature's mouth. Then, as one would do to a popcorn kernel, the Tyrannosaurus threw his head back, sending the soldier into the airs, and then clamped his jaws on the poor man's body.

The bump must have shaken the mud loose from the gears because the jeep started accelerating away. The Tyrannosaurus, seeing that his prey had escaped, stopped running and settled down to eat his catch. 

The jeeps drove on…

**19**

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH…

The sand under his boots crunched lightly as he walked along the beach. To his right, the Pacific stirred lazily, sending slow waves lapping up the beach, only to fall back into the ocean, leaving behind a white trace of foam. There was just enough wind to give the air that salty taste, but not enough to make someone uncomfortable. It was, he reflected, an idyllic scene.

Darren Husser hated it.

The co-pilot kicked sullenly at the sand, stirring up a great brown cloud. He was a man of action, who lived in the here and now. This job of baby-sitting an empty plane while a bunch of scientists tried to hack their way through the jungle was not his idea of usefulness. He had joined the Air Force because he had thought it was where all the action was these days. Instead, he's stuck walking around on the beach while the Army boys get to go inland. Husser decided he hated irony too.

He kicked at the sand one more time before resuming walking, hands in his pockets. Before he could move on, however, something glinting in the sand caught his eye. Husser bent down and saw some kind of metallic object buried in the sand, which the sun had reflected off. Glad to finally have something to do, he began to dig around in the sand, slowly revealing the object. It didn't take long before he was holding a flashlight.

Husser figured that the Costa Rican workers who were here before them had left it there. He automatically tried to flick it on, but got no results. It wasn't surprising, really. The flashlight didn't look good. Its comfort grip had been removed, and there were reddish rust-stains on it.

"Yo! Darren! Get over here, incoming transmission," he heard the voice of the pilot, Linda Howshenski, call out.

"Okay!"

Husser jogged towards the plane, swinging himself into the rear sass without breaking his pace. He walked down the aisle until he reached the cockpit. Howshenski gave him an odd look and motioned to the flashlight in his hand with her chin. Husser shrugged, and put the flashlight aside.

The cockpit was equipped with all the latest technological gadgets, which include a video monitor. On the screen there was a display indicating an incoming message, which was 87% complete. Husser crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall, waiting for the transmission to come in fully. Finally, the screen switched over to an image of General Samson, which looked just a bit choppy and had a greenish tint to it.

"This is just to let you know that your companion plane did not report in at San Diego base on time." The general's motions didn't look fluid on the screen, no doubt to interference caused by the distance the transmission had had to travel. "When we investigated, we eventually found debris on the surface of the Pacific, between San Diego and Isla Capula, on their flight path. We've found no survivors, but we haven't found any body parts or the black box yet. We're going to keep looking around in the wreckage and search the area for any survivors. I'm just advising you of this so you can double-check your own equipment, in case this was a problem with maintenance at San Diego. We are, of course, checking our own fleets. General Samson out."

The transmission ended and the screen went black. Howshenski and Husser glanced at each other uncomfortably. They hadn't known the pilot or co-pilot of the cargo plane, but nobody likes to hear of crashes, especially when they are pilots themselves.

"We're giving this bird a thorough rub-down before we take off again," Darren Husser finally said.

"You know it," she replied. A look of concern passed over her face, and she said: "Do you know where the survey team got their equipment appraised? Because if there is a problem at San Diego, and that's where they got it from, then they might get misreadings and malfunctions."

"I don't know where, but it couldn't hurt to check," Husser said, moving over to the radio. He flipped several switches to activate the radio on the survey team's frequency. "Carriage to Scout, Carriage to Scout, over." He waited a while, and then sent the message again. He turned to look at Howshenski, who simply shrugged.

"Maybe they don't hear it? After all, if they're on the move they won't be in the trailers themselves."

"Yeah, that's right. Or it's just interference."

"In any case," Howshenski said, "We'll give them the benefit of doubt. But if they still haven't answered in two days, I'm calling Samson and telling them to get the cavalry over here. Now, let's check out our plane, shall we?"


	4. Sections 20 to 26 - Campfire Tales

Disclaimer: John Hammond, InGen, Jurassic Park, Isla Nebular and Isla Sorna are all things that I have unconscionably stolen from Michael Crichton's novels Jurassic Park and The Lost World, as well as the movies of the same name. I have drawn on both forms of media (the books and the movies) for this story. It does not follow one or the other specifically… it is implied that John Hammond is still alive in this story, but I use dinosaur elements from the books… and a few that were in neither. None of the characters from Jurassic Park or Lost World, in either variation, appear in this story. Instead, I have chosen to plunk down a new set of characters on the island. The events described take place sometime between the Jurassic Park Incident and the San Diego Incident. Well, I guess that's all there is to say, except… enjoy the story.

#### Los Cinquo Muertes

##### Chapter 1: Survey

**In this instalment:**

20. Campfire Tales

21. Short-term Plans

22. Meiller Joins the Party

23. Ordinary Beetles

24. Lakeside Discussion

25. E.T. Phone Home

26. Memories

** **

**20**

CAMPFIRE TALES

Huddled around the campfire, the survey team looked more like a group of refugees than a government-financed expedition. The fire had not been built out of necessity, because they were, after all, on a tropical island and it was warm around the clock, but because the heat felt soothing after the team's recent traumatic experience. As if the fire wasn't enough, several members like Alice were wearing blankets around their shoulders, which had been packed 'just in case'. Those who weren't gathered around the fire were staring off into the stars, contemplating the mystery that was the island or reflecting on their own, recently proven mortality. Richley mused that the only thing missing to give the team an air of war survivors was a low, sad harmonica.

After the incident in the clearing, the team had drove on for several hours until finally unanimously coming to a stop in a small, clear area. There, they had sat down to a bitter, silent meal. Afterwards they had simply lingered around, doing menial tasks, none of them wanting to discuss the nightmare that had just taken place. It was nearly nine p.m., local time, before the incident was mentioned at all.

Richley stood resting against a tree, staring off into the jungle as if he expected that afternoon's monster to come charging out. He was lost in his own thoughts. Though the incident was not spoken of, it was foremost on everybody's mind, including Richley's. Benny came up slowly behind him and sat down on a rock besides the team leader. Richley didn't acknowledge his presence for at least a minute when, not even turning to look at Benny, he asked: 

"How could it of happened?"

Since Benny had no answer, he did not reply. Richley continued anyway:

"How does a goddamn monster that's supposed to be dead for sixty five goddamn million years suddenly show up on this island and start snacking on my men?!"

With a faint trace of a smile, Benny says:

"I don't goddamn know?"

But the joke falls flat, and Benny slums back. Finally, Richley turns away from the jungle and asks:

"Could this be some kind of lost world? A place where the dinosaurs somehow avoided extinction and have been living here ever since?"

"No. Had these dinosaurs somehow avoided extinction then evolution would have taken its course. The modern dinosaurs on this island would be significantly different from the ones we knew existed sixty five million years ago, which are the ones we have seen here. Besides, don't you think the Costa Rican government would have noticed that giant prehistoric beasts inhabited one of their islands? No, the dinosaurs got here recently, sometime during the years between the last survey of the island and now."

"Are you going to tell me that a group of dinosaurs decided to do some time travelling?"

"Of course not. Time travel is, at least for now, a physical impossibility. I'm completely stumped as to how they got here." 

Richley though for a moment, then said:

"Before the U.S. government acquired these islands, it had been briefly owned by a private corporation, something called InGen. Could they somehow be responsible for this?" 

"It does seem the most likely explanation. Trick is, though we may know whom, we still don't know how. I bet that if we figure out what it is exactly that InGen did, we would know how the dinos got here." Benny looked towards the circle around the fire. "I'd be willing to bet that our government attaché knows more about this company than we do." 

They got up and slowly walked towards the group around the fire. Richley tapped lightly on Ellis' shoulder.

"Ms. Ellis, could we have a talk with you?"

Ellis seemed to hesitate, then got up. Blanket still shrouded over her shoulders, she walked over to a small cluster of trees with Richley and Benny. She seemed to be completely out of it, very shell-shocked. Richley hoped she would be able to answer him. He kept his voice low when he spoke.

"Ms. Ellis, you know all the governmental details that are attached to this island, right?" 

Ellis nodded

"Then could you tell us a little about the company that was here before us, InGen?" 

Ellis appeared confused by the question, and then searched her memory for the information that had been in the formal report. Her brain barely worked as she spoke, it was all automatic. Right now, it hurt too much to think.

"Lets see, InGen… oh yes. InGen is a privately owned company that specializes in genetic splicing and reconstruction. Owner and CEO, John Hammond. Was given a few government subsidiaries to assist in researching the possibility of cloning rare animals, like the Californian Condor. It bought these islands in 1994 then sold it to the U.S. government, saying that the transportation fee was to high to establish company headquarters on an island this remote. That's all I know."

"Okay, thanks."

Dismissed, Ellis returned to the warm, comforting fire.

Richley turned to Benny and asked:

"Well, what do you think?"

"I'm a little less confused, but not by much. Sure, you can take DNA samples from existing animals and try to clone it; they did it with that sheep in New Zealand. But there aren't any dinosaurs around anymore. At least, there wasn't…"

"Wait, what about dinosaur fossils?"

"Naw. These guys have been dead for at least sixty-five million years, most of them more. There wouldn't be anything remaining in the fossils after that long. It's just impossible to resurrect millennia-dead dinosaurs like that."

"Well somebody found a way… maybe not with genetics, but they certainly found a way. I'm going to try to have another chat with her tomorrow," Richley said, nodding his head towards Ellis. 

Richley let out a long sigh and sat on a root.

"If – I mean when – we get off this island, I'm sure that the U.S. government is going to want to have a frank talk with mister Hammond. However, even if we did know where the dinosaurs came from, it still doesn't particularly help us." 

"True, true." 

Richley and Benny drifted back into silence, still pondering the odd information that their governmental attaché had given them. Then they spotted P.J. coming towards them, and got back up.

"Boss, I got bad news."

Richley looked at him incredulously. After a day like this, what news could possibly be considered bad?

"The trailer that got stuck, and then used like a football by the Rex, it was the one that held our communications equipment, our navigation equipment and a good deal of our provisions. Which means that we're lost on an island with lots of dinosaurs, with no way to contact home base and only a few days left of food."

Richley slumped against the tree again.

**21******

SHORT-TERM PLANS

"Alright, listen up people."

The sun had risen over the jungle trees once again, and the members of the expedition had woken up from a restless night to a bright, sunny morning. Though several of them still wore worried expressions, they didn't look half as haggard as they had the night before. Richley hoped that the shock from yesterday's events had passed; he needed his entire team at optimum performance. After breakfast, Richley had gathered the whole team in the centre of the clearing to address them. He stood on the hood of one of the jeeps to make sure that he had everybody's attention. 

"As you all know, we have encountered some . . . unexpected problems," several people chuckled uneasily at this, "on this island, resulting in the loss of one team member. But the news only gets worse."

Like Richley the evening before, many members wondered how things could possibly get worse.

"The trailer that was lost in the… incident… was the one that carried our communications gear, so we can't contact the plane. Also, we lost our navigational equipment, so we have no idea where we are or where we're going. Last but not least, we're running low on food supplies. So, here's what were going to do for now. Soles, Carlson and P.J. are going to return to the lost trailer to see if anything can be salvaged. Myself, along with Ms. Ellis and you two," Richley pointed to Stanley and Peter, "are going to go with them, then split and head towards the lake to replenish our water supply. This will have to be done in several trips. As for the rest of you, I want you to coordinate with Benny and Folker to search around the camp for any plant that might be edible. Don't eat anything before it's been analysed. Last thing we need now is somebody coming down with a case of food poisoning. Afterwards, we'll see what our long-term plan is going to be. Are there any questions?"

"Where do those things come from?" asked John.

"Ah, I've talked to Benny and Ms. Ellis about that one…"

Ellis looked surprised for a moment, then remembered last night's questioning and made the connection.

"We think that the company from whom the U.S. government bough the islands from are responsible for the presence of the dinosaurs, because they weren't here in '91. Whatever their plans had been, there must have been a problem because the company left these islands, then turned around and sold it. Didn't even bother to tell us that these things were here."

There were a few muttered invectives from the team.

"Any more questions? No? Good. Well then, let's get cracking."

**22**

MEILLER JOINS THE PARTY

After the little conference, Meiller walked up to Richley who was giving the last instructions to P.J. and his team.

"Sir," Meiller addressed Richley in this way even though he wasn't a superior officer, "I request permission to go along with the scavenging team. No insult to mister Jaminson's abilities, but if the Tyrannosaur shows up again, it would be best if they had somebody with military training with them."

For a moment, P.J. considered remarking to Meiller that his soldier's military training hadn't really done him any good, but didn't. Though he was sure he could handle anything this cursed island threw at him, it was nice to have somebody who could operate a gun along with him.

Richley just nodded his approval, and then walked back towards the interior of the camp. 

**23**

ORDINARY BEETLES

"Alice?"

"Yeah, dad, I'm here."

Alice was in one of the foldable shelters. Since it appeared that they were going to be staying in this clearing a while longer, nobody had bothered to take them down. 

Alice didn't bother turning to face her father when he came in. Her attention was riveted on the objet she had placed on one of the bunks. Inside the clear, plastic cage, Tiny was snacking on some juicy bugs Alice had found under a rock. Richley frowned at the creature. Alice, sensing what her father was about to say, said: 

"Don't worry dad, I checked with Benny before I took the bugs, they're just ordinary beetles."

She paused, then continued: 

"It's nice to see that something on this island is what it seems. A cute little animal turns out to be poison; a huge, supposedly dead monster comes out of the jungle . . . what's next, man-eating trees?"

"Honey, I assure you, if I had know that there was any danger here, I wouldn't have brought you."

"Well, duh. You're so overprotective that if you had known that these dinos were here you would have had me shipped to wherever the other end of the world is from here. China, maybe, or India." 

"I'm not overprotective. I'm just . . . concerned about you."

"Yeah, right. Look, I got to go help Benny with the plants now. Been fun talking to you."

And she left the shelter, leaving Richley alone with Tiny, who had finished his snack. It looked at Richley a moment then started making short, squeaky sounds.

"Oh, what are you laughing at?"

**24**

LAKESIDE DISCUSSION

The two jeeps roared down the clear-cut path into the large clearing. Then the vehicles split, as planned. P.J.'s team followed the tracks that the fleeing jeeps had made in the weeds the day before. After a short while, they arrived at the wreck. From close up, the sheer damage looked even worse. The trailer lay on its back, pierced wheels in the air. The impact had crushed the vehicle; it now stood no taller than a meter high. The door had been blocked by a broken piece of monitoring equipment, so Soles had go enter the trailer through one of the shattered windows. Carlson also went that way, though he had much more problems getting in than Soles because of his bulk. This worried P.J. because if the Tyrannosaurus returned, they might waste valuable time extracting Carlson from the trailer. 

Richley's team turned eastwards as soon as they entered the clearing, heading for the lake. They drove for a minute or two before arriving at the lake's side. There, Peter and Stanley, the two men Richley had brought along, unloaded the water tanks. Then both men took one and started filling it up using a vacuum hose. Weaker than the workers, Richley and Ellis took one tank for both of them. Richley put the suction end of the tube into the water, whilst Ellis fixed the sizes on the filters. They activated the machine, and slowly water came through the tube and into the tank, all impurities removed by the filters and measured quantities of chlorine.

As Richley crouched to examine the water slowly filling up the tank, Ellis asked him: 

"Okay, Richley, what is this all about?"

"Excuse me?"

"Come on, I'm not an idiot you know. You didn't bring me along because you needed an extra pair of hands. If that were true, you would have brought another of the bulging biceps buddies over there," she said, pointing to Peter and Stanley.

Richley didn't deny the accusation. In fact, he was glad that Ellis had figured it out. It meant that she had shaken off her coma-like state from the night before. Also, the alliteration she had used to describe his men amused him. He made a mental note to remember it and tell Stanley and Peter later on.

"Alright, I'm going to ask you a question. And I want you to give me an honest answer. Did you know?"

"What?" replied a bewildered Ellis.

"Did you know what was here? You said the government purchased this island. I can't believe the infrared satellites you people have up there didn't pick up an animal the size of a house! Did you or did you not send us here as guinea pigs?"

"No!" Ellis was indignant and slightly scared by the ferocious look on Richley's face. "The government isn't some uncaring, conspiratorial, power hungry institution, Mr. Richley. If we had known that this island was populated with man-eating monsters, the only thing we would have sent here would have been a squadron of bombers! I assure you that we… I… wouldn't subject anybody to this kind of nightmare."

"But what about the satellites?" asked a significantly less suspicious Richley.

"Well, to tell you the truth, and this is classified," she pointed out, "We've been having problems with pirates lately."

"Pirates?" Richley asked, confused. He could hardly imagine a group of swashbuckling sixteenth century buccaneers holding up to a regiment of U.S. soldiers armed with M-16 rifles.

"Yes. There is an organized group of privateers who have been raiding commercial shipping in these parts. Most of the satellites in this area are occupied trying to track them. In fact, one of the goals of this colony would have been to insure that the surrounding waters are kept safe through regular patrols launched from a harbour here."

Ellis sighted.

"But I guess that's impossible now. There is no way we could ever let people set foot on this island while these creatures are roaming. We would have to wipe them out first. And then, of course, there's going to be the scientific community protesting that we we're destroying an invaluable research opportunity. Greenpeace and all the other environmental organisations would do rallies and protestations: 'Don't let them go extinct again!' and other slogans and… God, what a whole big mess this is!"

Ellis sighed again and said:

"But no – we didn't know. Believe me when I say: I would never do anything to hurt her."

Richley frowned. 

"Her? Who is 'her'?"

"Oh, come on. Don't feign ignorance with me after I revealed classified information to you. Anybody can tell how protective you are about your daughter. You're worried sick that something on this island is going to get her."

"I worry about all my team members." Richley responded flatly.

"But not so much as you do for Alice. You consider everybody except Alice to be reasonable adults capable of taking care of themselves. You still think of her as a little girl that needs to be protected. I guess you're trying to make up for the lack of her mother–"

Ellis stopped as soon as she saw the look on Richley face when she mentioned his wife. It was a mixture of anger and sadness. Up to now, Ellis had assumed that Richley's wife had divorced him, possibly because a man in Richley's field traveled a lot. But the sadness on the man's face betrayed a much deeper loss.

"You're not divorced, are you." It was a statement, not a question.

"No, it's something a lot more… permanent… then that. Alice's mother is dead. She died while on an expedition. With me."

**25**

E.T. PHONE HOME

"Yo! Carlson! I think I got something here!"

Soles crawled out from under an upturned console inside the trailer. In her hands she held a small device with a LCD screen and several buttons.

"Some of the lights on this thing are still on, I guess that means it still works," said Soles.

"Pass it here," replied Carlson, sitting on his knees in the cramped space. Soles handed him the device then shifted around in the trailer into a hovering position over his shoulder. Carlson inspected the device, then whooped:

"Yes! It's a GRTX module, still in working order. We can use this to radio the plane! E.T. can now phone home, people!"

**26**

MEMORIES

Hurt spread across Richley face as he told Ellis about an incident that will forever play out in his mind. 

"We, me and my wife, were on a expedition, charting a branch of the Amazon River. Alice was six at the time, so we had left her with the U.S. Embassy in Rio de Janeiro before flying northwards to Pôrto de Mòz at the mouth of the river. We had ventured pretty deep into the jungle, then took a recently discovered branching near Fonta Boa. And we made a mistake. We forgot one of the principal creeds of explorations: always listen to the natives. For one thing they know the basic layout of the land, having lived there for generations. But native mythology is usually very important, because they might reveal some previously unknown danger in the area. We had ignored a warning from the natives about the 'Lizard-Guardians of the Gods'."

Richley paused in his recital, and his eyes looked as if he was gazing at something far way.

"She had been wearing her normal clothes that day: faded beige shorts and vest. Her hair had been tied in a tight knot to prevent it from getting snagged by an overhanging tree-branch. She had leaned over our boat to get some water samples, when she cried out and was pulled into the water. Screaming, I ran to the side of the boat, where my wife was struggling against a great black log-like thing, a gigantic alligator. A Melanosuchus niger, the Black Caiman, largest one ever recorded. I had a shotgun at my side, and I used it against the beast. I hit it once, twice, three times before it finally relented. I dragged her out of the water and onto the boat, a pool of red water forming where she had been. The damage was incredible: all the bones in her mid-section had been crushed, and the skin has torn and ripped asunder. She died in my hands, trying to whisper my name, but unable to because she lungs had been punctured. They say people look serene in death, but she looked more troubled than she had ever been in life. I immediately turned around, towards the nearest missionary camp, but there was nothing to be done. Alice took the news hard. She didn't leave her room for a week. Eventually though, she regained her exuberant personality. Like her mother, nothing could keep her down for long."

At a loss for something more appropriate to say in light of such a sad tale, Ellis spurted out:

"Well, at least there aren't any big alligators on this island."

"No," Richley said as he resumed pumping, "Here, it's worse."


	5. Sections 27 to 31 - Stampede

Disclaimer: John Hammond, InGen, Jurassic Park, Isla Nebular and Isla Sorna are all things that I have unconscionably stolen from Michael Crichton's novels Jurassic Park and The Lost World, as well as the movies of the same name. I have drawn on both forms of media (the books and the movies) for this story. It does not follow one or the other specifically… it is implied that John Hammond is still alive in this story, but I use dinosaur elements from the books… and a few that were in neither. None of the characters from Jurassic Park or Lost World, in either variation, appear in this story. Instead, I have chosen to plunk down a new set of characters on the island. The events described take place sometime between the Jurassic Park Incident and the San Diego Incident. Well, I guess that's all there is to say, except… enjoy the story.

#### Los Cinquo Muertes

##### Chapter 1: Survey

**In this instalment:**

27. Stampede

28. Domestic Dispute

29. The GRTX Module

30. Long-term Plans

31. Ellis Joins the Party

**27**

STAMPEDE

Oblivious to the discovery inside the trailer, P.J. and Meiller were sitting on the top of the trailer, silently observing the sides of the clearing for any disturbances. P.J. squinted through his sunglasses towards the far end of the clearing. He though he saw something there, so he picked up the binoculars next to him. Through them, he could see a large, brownish blur. At first, he though it was another one of the huge beasts, but then he noticed that the shape was in constant change and seemed airy. Dust, he realized. It was a cloud of dust. That meant animals, dinosaurs, and lots of them too. On top of that, they were heading this way. And fast. 

"What is it?" asked Meiller who had observed his facial expression change from behind the binoculars.

"We got company, a whole herd of 'em."

P.J. dropped to the side of the trailer and screamed through the hole:

"Dinosaurs! Get out now!"

Carlson and Soles at the far end of the trailer, scrambled to their knees. P.J. looked back towards the approaching herd. He swore. Those things were moving so damned fast that he could already see the dark outlines of their body. Meiller bent on one knee and squinted through the bull's-eye on his rifle. But is was pointless: he would never have enough time to bring down enough of them between the time they entered firing range and the time they reached the trailer's height. Carlson, to whom panic had given wings, had reached the window. Unfortunately, panic had not given him a slimmer body.

"I'm stuck, I can't go further!" he cried out.

P.J. grabbed both his arms and stated pulling while a cursing Soles pushed him from the back. Meiller began to fire shots at the nearing dinosaurs, knowing that they were too far away but hoping that they could be frightened off. P.J. looked towards the beasts. He could clearly see them now. They looked like plucked ostriches. Maybe two meters in height, five in length, they were bipedal, running on their hind legs. Their bodies were elongated, with a long tail and a sleek neck. Their heads were long and flat, narrowing towards the snout. Though P.J. did not recognize the dinosaurs themselves, he found their formation oddly familiar. Then it hit him: he had seen this before. Not the dinosaurs, of course, but the way they were moving resembled a spectacle he had seen many times in his days as an African safari guide: stampeding wildebeests. He realized then that the dinosaurs weren't heading towards the trailer, it was the trailer who just happened to be in their way. The dinosaurs aren't attacking; it was plain old stampeding. And P.J. knew that when confronted by a stampede, be it a modern or a prehistoric one, you had to seek cover. And fast. P.J. looked around. The trees were too far away, and there was nothing else to hide behind on this flat brush land. Except… 

"Get back in there!" P.J. screamed to Carlson's face.

"What? I've almost got him out!" Soles yelled back.

"Just do as I say!" said P.J. as he pushed Carlson back through the window and into the trailer. Then, before going into the trailer himself, he cried out to Meiller: 

"Meiller! Stampede! Get in the trailer!"

Meiller might not have had the African training that P.J. did, but he did get training as a soldier. And as a soldier, you learn to obey orders quickly and without asking questions. With the dinosaurs bearing down on him, Meiller jumped to the side of the trailer, grabbed the window's edges like a parallel bar, and swung himself into the turned-over trailer. Not a moment too soon, for then a triple-toed foot slammed into the ground where Meiller's head had been a second ago. Pretty soon the bulk of the stampede was upon them. They leaped on the trailer as if it were a vulgar stepping-stone. Inside, each pound on the metal roof (which was actually the trailer's floor) shook the entire structure. For a moment, P.J. was worried that the already massacred trailer might collapse on them. But then the pounding seemed to relent, as the tail of the stampede was passing them. Soles and Carlson stopped screaming, uncertain in all the previous noise when they had began to do so. Just then, one of the creatures stuck its head through an indentation of the trailer. It looked at a shocked Carlson with it's bulbous eyes, then grabbed a mouthful of ration packs that had been lying on the floor before racing away to rejoin it's companions. 

The danger passed, Carlson and Soles started laughing off the nervousness. P.J. and Meiller, more experienced with such stress, simply waited until they were finished before heading off back to camp in the jeep.

**28**

DOMESTIC DISPUTE

On their last trip to the lake, Richley and his crew saw that the lake was already in use. One of the armour-plated dinosaurs that they had seen the first time they arrived at this lake was sapping up the water. At first Richley was worried that it might turn out to be hostile, but the only thing the dinosaur did was raise its head towards the foursome, blew air out of its nostrils as if acknowledging their presence, then returned to quenching his thirst. Daria Ellis wasn't able to pass up the opportunity of meeting one of the island's residents up close. She hardly believed that the rightful inhabitants (if you could apply that to creatures that were supposed to be dead, and for 65 million years at that!) of the small island would create any legal problems. This one at far looked like a living tank and was scary in its bony armour, but up close it acted like nothing more than your ordinary run-of-the-mill cow. An island populated by cows wasn't much of a danger.

Then Ellis remembered the previous day's incident with the Tyrannosaurus and shuddered despite the afternoon heat.

As Richley, Peter and Stanley loaded the final water containers on the jeep, the tank-like dinosaur, that Benny later told her was an Ankylosaurus, started making low grunts and sniffs in the water team's direction.

Ellis, believing that the animal somehow sensed their departure, told it:

"It's okay boy, we have to go now, and we won't bother you again."

Then Richley started the car, the motor hummed to life and the jeep drove off. The Ankylosaurus, moving surprisingly fast for a creature of its bulk, turned around, the bony tail making a fell arc, and began trudging away from the lake, in the same direction as the jeep.

Ellis, holding down her hat with her hand, smiled and pointed it out to the other occupants of the jeep.

"Look, it's following us."

Peter and Stanley turned around while Richley glanced in the rear-view mirror.

"Mommy, mommy," Stanley said in a falsetto voice, "A dinosaur followed me home from school today can I kept him please?"

Peter laughed and Ellis and Richley smiled as the jeep disappeared into the jungle foliage.

In reality, the Ankylosaurus had detected a sent in the air, and was now fleeing as fast as it could (which looked like a lazy jog to the humans) away from the watering hole. Running was never this species' strong point, and shortly after the jeep vanished into the plants around the clearing, a group of bipeds emerged from the jungle opposite the Ankylosaurus. The dinosaur dropped down, folding its legs, so that only the armoured parts of its body were visible, and its vulnerable stomach well protected. The bipeds darted at it, making quick snaps with its jaws in its direction, and then falling back before the massive swinging club tail could hit them. One was not as agile and nimble as the rest, and the bony end crushed in the side of its skull. Then, as one, the bipeds surged in, towards the front end of the beast where the tail could not easily reach. Their arms dug under the Ankylosaurus' skin, carving a trench in the ground. Then they pushed upwards, just enough so that one of their number could position itself between the creature and the ground. Once this had happened, it was a simple matter to turn over the dinosaur like a turtle. Within seconds the Ankylosaurus was dead, the soft flesh of its underside ripped to shreds. Should any of the survey team have returned after half an hour, they would find of the armor-plated dinosaur and of its dead foe nothing but bones, picked clean by tiny scavengers. 

**29**

THE GRTX MODULE

"What about this one? It's pretty and it might have nutritional values."

"Naw, flowers aren't usually very nutritive," said Folker. "Your best bet would be roots. Grab a shovel a dig up some small shrubs."

"Shrubs, right. My idea of a party." Alice replied sarcastically as she walked off in search of a shovel.

Folker shrugged at the girl's lack of enthusiasm. Finding roots wasn't that important right now. Benny had found a fruit tree, and although Folker didn't recognize it, analysis indicated that it was not poisonous and a good source of vitamin C. Almost like an un-segmented orange without the hard skin. There was enough to last for a few meals, and together with the rations that had survived they had enough for a week. _Still, he though, glancing towards Alice who had just found a likely looking bush and had started digging it up, __that doesn't mean that we should stop looking for alternative sources anyway. It would be in the interest of any settlers to know how to survive off the land. And the digging is good exercise._

He then heard the low rumble of an approaching jeep. Everybody in the camp dropped whatever it was that they were doing and moved towards the noise. It was Richley and his group returning from their final trip to the lake. Richley and Ellis got out of the jeep whilst Peter and Stanley grabbed two tanks and began hauling them over to the shelters were they were being kept.

"So, anything new?" Richley asked Folker.

"Yes, some good news. Benny's found a bunch of fruit trees, which are suitable for consumption, and in enough abundance to last us a while. Basically our food and water problems have been taken care of. At least, for the moment, but I assume we'll be leaving here shortly?"

"Yes, as soon as P.J. and the others get back we're going to decide what our course of action is going to be."

"Excellent. Meanwhile, I'd like to show you these fruits that we've found. They're nothing like I've ever seen before. To a certain degree, they remind me of oranges–"

"Later, Pietro. I think I hear something."

The team, which had dispersed since Richley had arrived, re-agglomerated to see what news the second jeep would bring. After all, their actions over the next few days, and even their lives, might hinge on what the scavenging team had found. Hopes were high but reserved.

The jeep finally became visible through the jungle canopy. Meiller was driving, with P.J. riding shotgun. In the back seat, Carlson was fiddling with some device. The jeep slowed down and pulled up next to Richley.

"So, Carlson, what have you got there?" Richley asked expectantly.

"This," Carlson said, holding up the slim machine, "Is some good news and some bad news."

He hoisted himself out of the jeep and onto the ground.

"The good news is that this is an operational GRTX module. It operates sort of like a short wave radio, capable of sending and receiving messages. We couldn't find it's keyboard, but I could just hook it up to one of the others we have here and that'll do the trick. It would allow us to get into contact with the plane."

"Would?" asked Richley, frowning.

"The bad news is, it's out of power. We usually have three of these in the communications trailer. One of them is plugged in, and the other two are in storage. This one was in storage, so it doesn't have any residual electric charge. It does have batteries; only I guess these haven't been changed in a while, because they're very low. We can send out messages, but the signal won't be able to pierce the jungle and get to the plane."

**30**

LONG-TERM PLANS

Richley gathered everybody into a circle between the three remaining trailers. It was time to decide what they should do, and Richley wanted everybody's input.

"Alright, you're all aware of the situation. We're stranded here unable to contact our flight because the GRTX module doesn't have enough power to punch through the jungle. We have about a week's supply of food. Potentially dangerous dinosaurs surround us. Ideas, anybody?"

"Why don't we just return to the plane?" asked Calvin, one of the generalists.

Richley looked over to P.J., who said:

"That's always an option. It would take us about two days to get back to the plane–"

"No, it'll take more than that," Soles said. "We cleared the trail on the way over, but we'll probably have as much difficulty getting back than we did getting here, because of all the potholes and vines that have since re-claimed our path. I'd say we wouldn't be able to shave off more than half a day from our original journey."

"I think it'll be a lot worse," said Folker. "I checked our charts from 1991. We _have arrived in monsoon season. In fact, I think we've been lucky because we've barely gotten any rain at all. It's an exceptionally dry monsoon season, but we can't expect that to last for two days. And when it rains, the ground will get all muddy again, sinking the trailers and slowing us down considerably."_

"Couldn't we just leave the trailers?" asked Ellis. "After all, most of the stuff in there was for surveying, and I don't think we'll be establishing any colonies here soon."

"I don't like the idea of abandoning our equipment," said Carlson.

"There's enough room in the jeeps for one foldable tent each and enough rations for two or three days," said Alice.

"We're just getting back to our original problem," said Folker. "Carrying that extra weight will make the jeeps heavier and they'll start sinking like the trailers did. And if we do get caught by the rain, which I think we will, then it won't take two days but four, maybe even five."

"That's four maybe five days more than I want to spend on this island," said Stanley.

"I think we can all agree that we want off the island as soon as possible," said Richley.

"Definitely," said P.J. "This spot here is in the middle of the jungle, and fairly well isolated, but we can't count on not having the natives coming around for a visit eventually. In all cases, a quick route will also be the safest route. As long as we stay on the island, we run a chance of running into that Rex again. Which is another thing I wanted to bring up. We created a blazed trail through the jungle when we came here. Both the trails, namely the one leading from the beach to the clearing, and the trail leading from the clearing to here are now open for travel by all these dinosaurs."

"Whoa, wait a minute," said Richley. "Are you saying that this camp is in danger of being attacked?"

"Well, right now I don't think so," replied P.J. "It should take a while for the dinos to discover the new trails. Meanwhile, we could always find a way to close off this trail at the clearing end."

"Yes," said Corporal Meiller. "My men and I could put over a quick camouflage job with cut off bushes and vines and a few long sticks. It would look like normal jungle to anything outside. In fact, we could even cut down a pair of small trees, and place them in an 'X' pattern at the opening. It would prevent an animal just pocking around in the underbrush to find the path, at would be easy enough to remove if we want."

"Stop!" said Alice. "You're talking as if we're going to be staying here a while."

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence as everyone realized what she said was true. After a while, P.J. said: 

"Well, anyway, my point was that if we do have to spend four days on an open trail, stopping often to get the jeeps and/or trailers out of the muck, then we increase our chances of running into dinosaurs, who won't be impeded by something like mud."

"You know," Calvin said, "I've been hearing how this plan will be long and dangerous and all, but I'm not hearing any other plans. It seems this is the only solution we've got."

"That's unacceptable," said Richley. "I want an alternative."

There was another long, stretched silence as everybody raked his or her brains, searching for a way out. Finally, Benny broke the silence by saying:

"What about the GRTX module?"

"No, we've already been over this," said Carlson. "There's just not enough power to punch through the jungle."

"Well, then," Benny said, trying to come up with a defence for his idea. "What about… the clearing! There's no jungle there."

Carlson smiled uncharitably. "We need a clear line of sight between us and the plane. There's jungle between that clearing and the plane. And," he said, anticipating the next question, "the path we've cleared is too winding. It wouldn't work."

"The mountain!" said Soles, snapping her fingers. "We could ascend the mountain in the centre of the island, and send out our signal over the treetops…"

"…where the plane's instruments would detect it!" finished Carlson "Yes! That would work!"

"Wow, wait a minute, we're heading _deeper into the island?" proclaimed Alice._

"This does sound a little backwards," said Benny.

"Not at all," said Soles. "The mountain is only a day's journey away, even if we have to clear the underbrush. Plus, the rain won't affect our time that much, because once we hit the slopes, there won't be any mud, just rocks. The thing is, we might have to do some climbing to get to where we want to go."

"No," said Ellis. "You won't need to climb. InGen built their HQ straight into the mountain's superstructure, because it was cheaper to use a pre-laid infrastructure than build one. Once we can get to the building, we should be able to use the building's facilities to reach a high point on the mountain, like a balcony or something. I say should because the building might have deteriorated since. Elevators obviously won't be working, but any stone or metal stairs should still be stable."

"Why weren't we told there was already a building on this island?" Peter asked. "We could have set up shop there to do the surveying!" 

"Well, we judged that the building might no longer be safe. In addition to what I pointed out earlier, there might still be some equipment lying around. I was told that InGen left in a hurry." _No kidding thought Richley. "Reconnoitring on the island with base set up in one of the clearings would serve just as well. So you see, you didn't need to know."_

" 'Didn't need to know'? 'Didn't need to know'! We're on a need-to-know basis here all of a sudden!? What about them, huh?" Peter pointed towards the jungles and the beasts that no doubt lurked in them. "Did we not need to know about them either!? 'Cause I think it's pretty goddamn important!"

"We had no idea that there were dinosaurs here! We never would have sent people–"

"Well maybe you're on a need-to-know basis too, ever think of that!?"

"ENOUGH!" screamed Richley. "This is pointless! The motivation behind our presence here doesn't change the fact that we are here, and that we need to find a way out!"

Silence fell once again on the group. Peter, dejected, left the circle but stopped and leaned against a tree barely a few meters away, facing the rest of the group. It was, to him, a symbolical gesture. 

"So we go to the mountain, transmit the signal, and the plane intercepts it. Then what?" Richley asked Carlson.

"Well, then the plane can call in for reinforcements using their instruments. It should only take a day for the folks at the San Diego airforce base to scramble a few Apache helicopters to airlift us out of here."

"I don't like the idea of us staying here much longer," said Alice.

"Yeah," said Stanley, "couldn't the plane itself come and get us?"

"On what runway?" asked Ellis. "That plane doesn't have the capacity for hovering or vertical landing and lift-off like an Apache."

"Couldn't we turn the clearing into a runway?" asked Benny.

"It's not big enough."

"Well, then, what about using nets to slow it down? Like an external braking system."

"That might work," Carlson said, already thinking up the basic layout of such devices.

"No, it won't," said Ellis. "All that high grass might hide rocks that the plane would trip over. It's too dangerous."

"Staying here isn't exactly the safest idea either," interjected Peter from his spot against the tree.

"If we try this idea and it doesn't work, we'll lose the plane. What do you suppose we do then?"

"The plane could contact San Diego, have them scramble the helicopters, and _then try to rescue us," he responded._

"That's callous. You'd be risking their lives unnecessarily since we'd be out of here in a day anyway."

"A lot can happen in one day."

"We have no right to risk their lives on this dumb, unfounded plan."

"They're military! That's their job!"

Corporal Meiller shot the lone man a dark look, but before he could reply P.J. spoke up:

"It would be dangerous to us too. For this to work, a lot of us would have to be working one day for as long as there's daylight in a clearing. A clearing with a frequented water hole. The perfect lure for predators, as we saw yesterday. That clearing might even be a game trail for all we know. We were probably lucky that we didn't have any run-ins while we were working there today." Carlson and Soles gave the hunter an odd look, thinking that nearly being trampled in a dinosaur stampede qualifies as 'a run-in'. "I can't guarantee that we'll have that kind of luck again."

"Then it's settled," said Richley. "We won't use the clearing as a landing runway."

"But we will still be going to the mountain to contact the plane, right?" asked Benny.

"We? I don't think so. You, Benny, are staying right here. And the rest of you too. This position can be fortified against the dinosaurs. A mobile search party doesn't have that luxury."

"Plus," said P.J., "It's entirely possible that some dinosaurs have decided to make their nest in this building, since it's like a cave. I'm not sure if they do live or nest in caves…" P.J. looked towards Benny for confirmation, but the biologist shook his head: it is practically impossible to know the behaviourism of animals that have not been observed for sixty-five million years. "Anyway, since there's apparently no way of knowing for sure, personal experience has taught me that it's best to assume the worst. That's why I'm going to be going with you, Brent. You'll need somebody who knows how to hunt and how not to be hunted."

"I need you here, guarding everybody else." Richley said.

"All that needs to be done here is the trail blocked off and the perimeter secured. Meiller and his boys can do that, they have the training. The camp will be safe. However, you'll be venturing out into unexplored land, possibly into what some of the predators consider their territory. This mission had to go through, and I'm your best bet."

"Alright," Richley acquiesced. "Carlson, I'm also going to have you tag along with us. If something goes wrong with the module, I want my top computer guy there with me. And Soles, we're going to need your abilities to find this building, and then figure out which direction to send the message in."

Carlson and Soles nodded their heads grimly. It wasn't going to be a very safe mission, but at least it would be better than sitting around the camp, waiting for something to happen.

"So we're agreed, people? One day to make it to the mountain and broadcast, another for the helicopters to get here and airlift us out. We leave tomorrow morning, at first light. With any luck, in two days time we'll be flying over the Pacific, courtesy of the San Diego air force."

**31**

ELLIS JOINS THE PARTY

Meiller and his men started making preparations to secure the camp as soon as Richley dismissed the group. They took some the survey team's ample supply of string and strung it up around the triangle formed by the three trailers, at the centre of which the four foldable shelters were set up. They cut down some trees to provide them with stakes to make sure the string was kept at a constant height, about 15 centimetres off the ground floor. To this cord they attached cutlery ware, plates and pans, wind gougers and metallic covers, and anything else that would make a noise when hit together. This way, there was a quick perimeter warning when anything approached the encampment, from the largest lumbering beast to a pack of Tiny's relatives. It wouldn't be much of a warning if the T-Rex decided to pay them a visit, but it was the best that could be done under present circumstances. The three military men also agreed to take standing shifts, though because of the denseness of the surrounding jungle, the efficacy of such a measure was doubtful.

Richley was watching them string up the perimeter when Ellis came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Richley, can I talk to you?"

"Of course, Ms. Ellis. What's on your mind?"

"I want to go with you."

It took Richley a moment to fully understand what she meant.

"What? Absolutely not!"

Ellis, who had expected this kind of response, calmly asked him:

"Why not?"

"Because it's much to dangerous, that's why."

"Yet you're going. And so are Mr. Jaminson, Mr. Carlson and Ms. Soles."

"We are going because it is necessary."

"No, Carlson and Soles are necessary. P.J. is tagging along as protection. What is going to be your role?"

Richley had not considered this.

"I'm the team leader," he finally said. "It is my duty to lead my men in the field on dangerous expeditions. If I just sat back and let everybody else take this risks, what kind of leader would I be?"

"Of course," Ellis said, nodding her head. "But understand this: it is my duty to come with you."

Richley shook his head from side to side.

"With all due respect, Ms. Ellis, you are not a leader. You are our attaché. You don't need to take these kind of risks."

"First of all," Ellis said, "I don't see how the risks of going on this mission are any difference from just waiting around here for Tiny's big brother to find us." Ellis could tell that this was not something Richley wanted to hear, especially since he would be leaving his daughter behind, but she ploughed on anyways: "And second, I was not referring to my duties to the team, but for the government that I work for."

Ellis sighed, and then took a deep breath.

"Understand, Richley… InGen really screwed us over. They bought this island from Costa Rica probably because it was far enough from U.S. controlled areas, where they felt they could do…" Ellis waved expansively. "Whatever it is they did here to get those dinosaurs, without us supervising it. And boy, we would never had let this go on unless we were absolutely 200% sure that there would be no danger to our personnel or anybody else. In fact, for all we know, what InGen was doing on this island might have been in violation of U.S. or international law. Hell, both! And then they have the nerve to turn around and sell these islands to us, never bothering to mention to us that there were rather large meat eating dinosaurs running around on it!"

Ellis paused in her tirade, getting a pensive look.

"Actually, they might have sold them to us _because_ there were dinosaurs loose on it. An experiment gone wrong, that they neatly got rid off. Anyway. As a representative of the government here on this island, I would be remiss in _my_ duties if I didn't do all that was within my ability to figure out what happened here, and to gather as much incriminating evidence of InGen's actions as possible."

"Shouldn't we be worrying more about staying alive than about lawsuits?"

"You see those soldiers over there?" Ellis asked, pointing to a pair of Meiller's men who were rigging up the perimeter. "They have a lot of training. Now that they know what they're up against, they can analyse their situation and find the best way to survive. They know that in this case their odds would go up if they left the main group. A lone soldier has less chance of being located, even by animals, then a large group of scientists. And yet they stay. Why? Because of the duty they have sworn to uphold, to protect the rest of you, even if it means putting their life on the line. I also have a duty to uphold. I serve my government. It may not be perfect, but it's the best we've got, and I'll be damned if I'm not willing to take chances for it. I've risked my life for what I believe in before, during clashes in the Middle-East." 

Richley flashed to the outfit she had worn on their first day on the island, the one that looked like it had come from operation Desert Storm.

"This is the same situation. The enemy are big dinosaurs instead of tanks and soldiers, but I have to do what I have to do, just like you do."

Richley mulled over what she said longly. Ellis did not attempt to interceed, but was content to stand next to Richley while he debated and made his choice.

"Fine," he finally said. "You can come along, but let the record show that this was against my better judgement."

"I'll be sure to make a note of it on my report when we get off this island." Ellis said, cracking a smile.

Richley smiled too, not because of what she had said, but because of the way she had said it. "When", not "if". It was a small grace, but right now he'd take anything he could.


	6. Sections 32 to 38 - Departure

Disclaimer: John Hammond, InGen, Jurassic Park, Isla Nebular and Isla Sorna are all things that I have unconscionably stolen from Michael Crichton's novels Jurassic Park and The Lost World, as well as the movies of the same name. I have drawn on both forms of media (the books and the movies) for this story. It does not follow one or the other specifically… it is implied that John Hammond is still alive in this story, but I use dinosaur elements from the books… and a few that were in neither. None of the characters from Jurassic Park or Lost World, in either variation, appear in this story. Instead, I have chosen to plunk down a new set of characters on the island. The events described take place sometime between the Jurassic Park Incident and the San Diego Incident. Well, I guess that's all there is to say, except… enjoy the story.

#### Los Cinquo Muertes

##### Chapter 1: Survey

**In this instalment:**

32. Outing

33. Departure

34. The Storm Breaks

35. Stowaway

36. Camouflage Test

37. The Ditch

38. Compass and Lever

**32**

OUTING

The night was restless for everyone. Whereas the previous night most of the team had been in a state of shock, and their sleep had been akin to being comatose, undisturbed by dreams, this night more than made up for that with the nightmares of the past few days. Everybody twisted and turned on their bunk, visions of giant dinosaurs dancing through their heads. 

Alice woke up in a sweat, barely stifling a scream as she sat up on her bunk. She blinked several times at the blank grey walls of the foldable shelter, assuring herself of her relative safety. The nightmare had already begun to fade away, and Alice made no effort to recapture the fleeting images. She lay back against the bunk, pulling the single thin blanket up to her chin.

She tried to go back to sleep, but was instead rewarded with fifteen minutes of staring at nothing. Sleep, it seemed, was the only one of them to have escaped this island. Resigning herself to her insomnia, Alice swung her feet over the side of the bunk and lowered herself to the floor quietly, being careful not to disturb Ellis or Soles. They would need their sleep for tomorrow's journey. 

Opening and closing the door to the shelter stealthily, Alice sneaked out into the night air. Alice immediately noticed that there had been a change in weather. Throughout their stay on the island, the temperature had remained pretty constant thanks to the latitude of the island and the proximity to the Pacific. But tonight the air seemed heavier. Alice guessed that the rainy season was about to make itself known. 

She saw a single figure standing next to a small campfire.

"Can't sleep?" Meiller asked.

Alice shook her head.

"Well, stay inside the perimeter," he continued.

Alice nodded her understanding, and walked away from the foldable shelters to one of the trailers. She heard the small shuffling sounds as soon as she went into the trailer. Alice moved along the darkened silhouettes of surveying equipment, worthless to them right now, and lowered herself into a crouching position in front of a transparent plastic cube. Inside, Tiny squirmed around aimlessly, looking as if he were performing some sort of reptilian callisthenics.

Inwardly, Alice wondered when exactly the small dinosaur slept. She had previously assumed that it was nocturnal, but it seemed to be as active as ever now, albeit a little clumsy in the confined space. Alice watched the small reptile head dart around at the end of that sinuous neck. Then its eyes fell on her, and, cocking its head sideways, it began taking its squeaky trilling sounds.

In the past, she had found this behaviour to be endearing. Now, in the darkness of the trailing, the miniature dinosaur seemed threatening, and its cry like some kind of huntsman's song, calling his fellows to the kill. Alice continued to watch Tiny swish its tail back and forth. It suddenly jumped at the side of the cage, it's jaws opening and then snapping shut as he hit the invisible barrier.

Surprised, Alice lost her balance and fell backwards on her rump. In the cage, Tiny resumed his victory cawing.

**33**

DEPARTURE

A rather dark looking veil of clouds covered the sky that morning. They hadn't burst yet, but threatened to do so at any moment. Standing under the grey blanket of the hidden heavens, Richley took a look around the campsite. 

For some reason, the team looked even less enthusiastic then they had the day before. Richley guessed the gloomy weather might be responsible, but he knew it wasn't the only thing. The island was starting to get to them. Being on an island with beasts like that Tyrannosaurus gave everybody a sense of inferiority and insecurity, as if they were very small players in the natural drama being played out on the island. Certainly that's how he felt. Dwarfed. And he guessed it was even worse for those who would be staying at the campsite. Inactivity and a sense inability often went together quite well, even thought it wasn't true.

Or they had had the same kind of restless night he had. Alice especially, Richley noted with concern, seemed to be very tired.

His smaller expeditionary team had gathered around him, and the rest of the survey team had former into a semi-circle facing them. Richley wasn't sure if they expected him to give some kind of pep talk. Either way, he didn't have the motivation.

"We'll be going now," Richley said outright. "I trust you to play it safe. Don't take any unnecessary risks. You've got enough food and drink to last until the helicopters get here, so there's no reason to leave the encampment. But be on your guard, and I want everybody to pay attention to everybody else. Draw up a buddy system; I don't want anybody to suddenly go missing. And if someone does, stay here and don't risk anybody else in a search party."

The group shifted uncomfortably. That sense of insecurity seemed to have become palpable.

"If all goes well, the helicopters should get here tomorrow. After they pick you up, they'll drop by the mountain and get us out. If they haven't arrived in two days' time, I want everybody to pack into the jeeps and start heading back towards the plane. No search parties," Richley repeated.

Richley could tell that this decision was not a popular one. But his people were smart – they recognised why it was a necessary measure. It was senseless to risk others on someone who might already be dead.

"Well then, good luck."

"You too, sir," Meiller answered for the rest of the group.

Richley acknowledge this with a nod of the head, and then slipped in behind the wheel of the jeep. Carlson took the shotgun seat besides him, and P.J. squeezed in with the two women in the backseat. Various provisions (food, water, etc…) and some equipment (flashlights, batteries, etc…) hung from saddlebags on the side of the jeep. The GRTX module Carlson kept in his hands, not willing to let go of the device that would be instrumental to their rescue.

Richley started the engine, and without any further preamble, drove off into the jungle underbrush. The remaining members of the survey team mulled about for a while, long after the keep had disappeared into the canopy. Finally they dispersed, ready to begin to long task of waiting.

**34**

THE STORM BREAKS

** **

**The rain finally started falling at around ten in the morning, and when it did, it did so without warning. Those who had remained at the campsite looked up from whatever activity they had been passing their time with as a veritable hail of straight, 90-degree nails of water began falling from the sky. The various surveying projects that the team had been conducting – more out of a need to do something instead of waiting around than an actual belief that the data would ever come in handy – were abandoned as most took refuge inside the trailers or the foldable shelters.**

Alice had been practising some horticulture of the orange-like fruits with Folker when the sudden deluge struck. Alice rose to join the others, and then halted as she saw that Folker wasn't following her.

"Aren't you coming?" she cried out over the rain.

"A little rain never hurt anybody!" the botanist replied.

Alice shook her head. Dressed as she was for the island's tropical climate, she was rapidly becoming soaked. It would be utterly ridiculous for her to catch a cold while on an equatorial island. She jogged over the ground, rapidly turning into mud, towards the nearest trailer, yanked the door open and swung herself inside. 

As she shut the door, there was a sudden shrill squeak. Jumping, Alice spun around and saw that she had taken sanctuary in the trailer where they kept Tiny. Even in the little light afforded by the storm, Alice could not shake off the feeling of unease about the creature that had seized her last night. Tiny tittered in his jittery fashion, and Alice decided to seek out another refuge from the rain.

Running back out into the pounding water, Alice headed towards her foldable shelter, sliding over the last two meters due to the now definitely muddy ground. She closed the shelter door behind her, in case the wind decided to change direction. The shelter was empty, of course: both Ellis and Soles had gone off with her father. Despite the short time spent outside, Alice still felt chilled to the marrow by the rain. It pounded on the roof of the shelter, sounding like a series of small drums being beaten constantly with no apparent rhythm.

As she starting twisting the extra water out of her damp hair, it suddenly occurred to her that the sound of the rain falling on the roof would drown out any noise made by their impromptu perimeter. As this sunk in, the shelter began to feel much smaller and insignificant.

**35**

STOWAWAY

The progress through the canopy was proceeding a little slower than Richley had expected. Nothing that would through off their schedule, but they found themselves stopping often in order to clear a particularly thorny patch of the underbrush, or a fallen tree. When the rain started, it only made matters worse.

"Pass me one of those covers," Carlson said, reaching backwards with one hand. In the other he clutched the GRTX module, which he had protectively tucked under his considerable body by leaning over.

Soles dug around in one of the side packs for a blanket. They had rapidly realised that leaving the equipment hanging off the side of the jeeps was a bad idea, and the bags would get snared and torn. So they had brought the bags into the already cramped jeep. Soles found the blanket and handed it to Carlson, who proceeded to wrap up the GRTX module in it.

"Hang on," P.J. said, rising obliquely out of his seat. "Boss, stop for a second while I put on the roof."

Richley let the jeep slide to halt in the silt. Richley hoped that the jungle would start to clear up soon, because the mud would soon become a problem. And if they had to fight both the jungle and the mud, they would certainly lose valuable time. The longer it took for them to contact the plane, the longer Alice and the others would be sitting in the jungle.

Since the trailers were largely useless in the current conditions, all the trailer attachments had been removed from the jeeps. P.J. reached over the back of the jeep, and grabbed hold of the remaining bar. With a grunt, he pulled it upwards, the set of hinges on the bottom and sides of the jeep creaking a bit. The metal skeleton of the roof unfolded itself, and P.J. pulled it towards him. Soles and Ellis guided it above the jeep, and finally Richley and Carlson attached the hanging bars to the hooks on the side of the windshield.

Just below the bar was the compartment for the actual material that would form the roof. P.J. tugged on it, but the sheet didn't spin. Looking over the side, P.J. could see a large bump in the fabric. Jumping off the back of the jeep, P.J. lowered himself to the bar's level. Grabbing the edge of the fabric tightly, he gave a sharp tugged, then moved backwards as the sheet spun open and a small creature fell out.

P.J. thought it looked a slightly smaller version of Tiny, only it wasn't the same species. It looked somewhat like miniature reptilian kangaroo, standing on hind legs with its front paws curled out in front of it. The creature struggled to its feet, teetering awkwardly. It was dizzy, but from the way it held itself P.J. deduced that it was also a very young infant. The thing finally regained its balance and looked around with an almost human look of confusion. Then its eyes locked onto P.J.'s boot, and it pounced on it, wrapping itself around the edge.

"Get off," P.J. said with irritation, kicking his leg into the air and flinging the small creature off his boot and into the underbrush. Once rid of the animal, P.J. grabbed the rood cover and stretched it out over the metallic frame. After tying the sheet down, he got back into the jeep. Richley revved the engine and starting crawling forwards through the jungle again.

"So what was it?" Ellis asked, having overheard P.J. before.

"I'm not sure," P.J. answered. He looked down at the boot that had been attacked, and noticed that the leather had been pierced in several places. "Whatever it was, it had teeth and claws."

**36**

CAMOUFLAGE TEST

The windshield wipers flashed back and forth in front of Benny's field of vision. The pounding rain made it somewhat hard to see, but he didn't dare turn on the headlights. The last thing he wanted to do was attract the island's residents.

Finally, he was able to spot the shape of the other jeep in front of him, just before the clearing. He pulled to a slow halt in the mud, and got out of the jeep. He grabbed the raincoats on the seat next to him and slipped out into the rain.

In front of him he could see Meiller's men working at the makeshift barricade. Him and his two soldiers had left almost as soon as Richley and his team were gone. They had spent most of the morning shopping down two small trees and gathered other various branches and ferns. Once cut, they placed the trees across the opening that the jeeps had made in an **X pattern, leaning them against a pair of thicker trees. Using vines as rope, they had then tied the smaller branches, as well as assorted greenery, to the two felled trees. Meiller was certain that it would be ample to convince any nosy dinosaur that there was, in fact, no path there.**

Benny jogged over to the men in the camouflage suits, the rain falling in rivulets off the rim of his raincoat's hat.

"I brought you guys some raincoats!" he yelled over the din of the shower. When the rain had started back where they had set up base-camp, Benny had realised that the military men had no protection. 

"Thanks," Meiller screamed back. "But we're almost finished here anyway. The campsite will be safe. From this side, at least."

"That's good news," Benny said. "How long until you're finished?"

"Just a few more minutes. All we have to do now is–"

Meiller stopped as he heard a large booming sound. He looked up towards the angry heavens. The sound came again, but something was wrong. Although it was sonorous, it didn't have that rolling quality that thunder usually had. When he heard it the third time, Meiller knew the spacing had been to regular to be something natural.

"Something's coming this way!" he cried out. "Everybody get down!"

His men immediately dropped down, and Benny followed shortly thereafter. They hit the ground hard, and mud splattered up onto their clothes and faces. Benny spitted some silt out of his mouth, and then looked up. They were right next to the barricade, and Benny could see the clearing beyond it through holes in the assembled foliage.

He could also see what was in the clearing.

The absence of sunlight and the stormy weather combined to give the T-Rex and even more nightmarish look than the prehistoric escapee projected naturally. Once again, Benny was stuck by the sheer predatory look the animal gave off.

The dinosaur walked across the clearing, come from some point off to the side of the jungle where the huddled men couldn't see. It appeared to be moving in a slow, almost lazy manner, dropping one three-toed foot in front of the other, the large head bobbing up and down with every step. The rain splattered off its greenish grey hide.

The Tyrannosaurus was longing the side of the jungle, and paused when it reached the height of the barricade. Benny held his breath as the massive meat-eater hesitated in his step, and began moving his head upward in small jerks. Although Benny couldn't hear due to the rain, he knew what the dinosaur was doing, having seen this type of behaviour in many other animals: it had detected a scent. 

Ever since the nature of the island's residents had been revealed, Benny had been racking his mind for as much information about dinosaurs as he could remember, and writing them down in a small notebook. Watching the predator sniffing the air, another fact rose unbidden to Benny's consciousness: the Tyrannosaurus had one of the largest olfactory cavities ever recorded.

The Tyrannosaurus shifted its head downwards and to the left. Through the crack in the foliage, Benny watched as the Tyrannosaurus's forward facing eyes scanned the section of false jungle. Benny ardently hoped that Meiller had done as good a job on the palisade as he had boasted. The dinosaur had already scented them – if it spotted them as well, they were as good as lunch. Silently, Benny cursed the bright yellow raincoat he was wearing.

The Tyrannosaurus spent the better part of a minute drawing his eyes across the façade. A low rumbling came from its throat, sounding obscenely like the purring of an oversized cat. Finally, it turned away, and made a harsh grating sound. It resumed its forward motion, and soon even the heavy tail, swinging back and forth for balance, had disappeared from the field of vision afforded by the false jungle.

Benny breathed a sight of relief.

"I think," Meiller said softly, "That our work here is done. Obviously, the camouflage works, and I don't feel like staying here to finish off the few patches. This suddenly feels like a rather unhealthy place to stick around."

They waited a few minutes nevertheless, in the fear that the sound of the engines might attack the Tyrannosaurus. Exhausted by the near miss, they returned to the campsite.

**37**

THE DITCH

Once the rain had started and the ground had become muddy, progress in the jeep had begun to slow considerably. In retrospect, it might not have been a good idea to try to fit in five people into one jeep, along with their provisions and a few aids. The jeep itself had long since lost its appealing red, green and black stripped pattern under the clay-purple colour of the mud that had splattered on its side. 

Worse yet, the jeep had become mired in puddles of silt a few times, forcing the occupants of the jeep to get out and push while Ellis tried gunning the engine. The occupants of the jeep (except for Ellis) were also covered in mud because of just such an instance where the jeep unexpectedly took off, leaving Richley and the others leaning against thin air. Despite the circumstances, it was all Ellis could do not to laugh at her four companions, standing around with an open-mouth expression of shocked surprise showing through their silt-covered faces.

"P.J., that little creature you found before: could it have been one of Tiny's cousins?" Ellis asked shortly afterwards, intent on breaking the moody silence in the jeep.

"I'm not sure," he said again. "I'm not an expert on dead ecosystems. But if I had to guess, I'd say no. It was coloured differently, for one thing. Tiny is green, and the thing I saw was more of a brown-grey."

"That's not necessarily an indication of anything," Richley pointed out. "I've seen birds whose plumage varies widely between males and females."

"Yeah, but this isn't feathers were talking about here, and these aren't birds. They're overgrown lizards. Well," P.J. amended, "I guess some of them are normal-sized. Though I don't think that any of the animals here are natural."

"Robots?" Carlson asked, his interest piqued.

"No, I'm sure they're just animals. They certainly behave like animals. It's just that there's something about them that really off-putting. Like they don't belong here."

"For all intent and purposes," Richley put in. "They don't."

P.J. pondered that for a moment, then said:

"Besides, coloration isn't the only difference. It held itself differently, much more upright than Tiny did. The head wasn't as long and Benny said that Tiny and his species were pack hunters. This one was not afraid to attack, even alone and an infant."

"Could it have been a baby T-Rex?" Soles asked.

"No. I doubt they're ever that small. Even supposing the one I found was a baby, I'd say an adult wouldn't be any bigger than you or me."

"How many species are on this island, do you suppose?" Carlson asked.

"Well, there's Tiny and the T-Rex," P.J. answered, thinking of the predators first.

"When we first got to the clearing, there were also Triceratops," Richley mentioned.

"And one of those Anky… Ankylo… armoured-covered dinosaur," Ellis said.

"Don't forget those plucked ostriches that tried to run us down at the trailer," Soles said bitterly.

"And your baby makes six, P.J.," Carlson concluded.

"I wouldn't jump to conclusions about that just yet," P.J. said. "There might be more species on the island that we haven't seen yet."

"How much more of an ecosystem could an island this size hold, anyway?" Ellis asked.

"Well, assuming that we've only seen a portion of the inhabitants during our stopovers in the clearing, I'd say at least several more herds. The island is rich in vegetation, and where there's herbivores there's carnivores."

"Assuming that the ecosystem of the island is natural at all," Richley said. "One would expect that kind of layout in a normal environment, but this is anything but normal. For all we know, the dinosaurs present on this island were brought here for specific purposes, so they wouldn't be representative of a normal ecosystem."

"Maybe. But if they've been around without supervision since InGen pulled out, they might have time to work out an ecosystem of their own. Establish their own balance of herbivores and predators."

"Speaking of predators," Ellis said, "I assume that the T-Rex is at the top of the food chain around here, right? Because I wouldn't want to meet something that preys that monster."

"No, I'm pretty sure that the Tyrannosaurus will be our main worry here. As I remember, it's the biggest land predator ever. I very much doubt that there's going to be any bigger danger."

"Yeah?" Carlson said hopefully. "I don't know all that much about dinosaurs. All I can remember about them is from picture book I had when I was a kid. I remember the T-Rex, and the Triceratops, and something called Stegosaurus. There was also this huge one, like a giraffe on steroids, but I can't remember its name, and it was a vegetarian anyway." Carlson frowned, his brow furrowing in concentration. "As I remember, there was also a flying dinosaur."

"That could be a problem. We wouldn't want anything to interfere with our ride out of here," Soles said.

"Or for them to get off the island," Ellis said.

"I wouldn't worry too much about it," P.J. said. "Those Apaches can take out well-defended human-built bases. A bunch of flying lizard shouldn't be a problem."

"And as for containment," Richley said, "that's not something we have to worry about. At least, not yet. Our priority is getting off this island. We can figure out what to do with these beasts afterwards." 

They jeep suddenly pitched forwards, it's nose aiming towards the ground. The back wheels spun pointlessly before Richley slammed his foot against the brake pedal, but it was too late. The jeep had mired itself in a mud-filled ditch.

Because of the current climatic conditions, it was impossible to tell whether this was a naturally occurring phenomenon, perhaps the result of earth movement, or whether InGen had dug it during their sojourn on the island. Nonetheless, the fact remained that it was present but hidden from view by mud and leaves torn off their branches by rain and wind.

The jeep was inclined at approximately 30 degrees, and the front cabin had filled with liquid silt. They all just sat there in stunned silence for a few seconds. Then Carlson began desperately shifting through the mud covering him. His face lit up, and he pulled his hands out of the muck, holding an indiscriminate lump covered and dripping of mud. He unfolded the object and withdrew the GRTX module, thankfully still clean. Carlson breathed a sigh of relief, then said:

"I hate this island."

**38**

COMPASS AND LEVER

Ellis walked up to Soles, standing aside from the lodged jeep. Soles was holding a round piece of metal in her hands, and kept looking at it in confusion. Occasionally, she would hold it up into the air, still staring at it in bafflement, and wave it around. Ellis was reminded of someone trying to get a signal for his or her cellular phone.

"What's wrong?" Ellis asked once she had reached Soles' height.

"My compass is screwed up. It can't decide where north is."

"Really?"

"Look for yourself," Soles said, thrusting the object into Ellis' hands.

Ellis examined the compass. It looked just like hundred of other she had seen and used during her career. The casing was painted golden to look like gold (but wasn't, as it would be too easy to brake). The top flipped open to reveal a black-against-white series of marks in a concentric circle around the edge of the compass, with North, South, East and West marked by a large, bold letter. The only difference from others was that the colour-coded needle, pinned down in the middle, was slowly spinning from side to side. Ellis watched in puzzlement as the needle, pointed just left to the big **N, gradually rotated back a full 180 degrees to the right of the ****S. It hovered there for a few seconds, and then started back again.**

"What can do this?" Ellis asked.

"High concentrations of minerals or metals that produce strong electromagnetic fields in the vicinity. We landed on the north side of the island, and were heading for the mountain at the south. Since the compass keeps switching between those two directions, I'd guess that there are deposits of magnetite or iron in that mountain that's throwing off the compass."

Soles sighted.

"The problem is, thanks to this we don't know whether we're heading towards the mountain or away from it."

Ellis frowned.

"Are you serious?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure that we're heading towards the mountain. After all, our direction was good when we started off. And the fact that the compass isn't working as we get closer to the mineral deposits shows that we're closing in on the mountain. But if we got turned around in the jungle…"

"Isn't there any way of making sure?"

"Not with this in the way," Soles said, pointing upwards at the covered sky, still belching rain down on them. "If there weren't any clouds, I could tell our direction just from the shadows and the sun's position. As it is, even my tracking equipment can't punch through to get telemetry from orbital satellites."

"Wasn't there something about moss growing on the north side of trees?"

Soles made a show of looking around here. In the thick canopy, there didn't seem to be anything not covered in moss or vines. Soles looked back at Ellis pointedly.

"Alright, scratch that idea."

"We won't be able to tell if we're heading the right way unless the sky clears up, or we clear the canopy and actually see the mountain. But, like I said, I'm pretty sure we're heading the right way."

"Say, Miss Ellis?" P.J. called out from over by the jeep. "If you're not too busy chatting it up over there, could you lend us a hand? I'm pretty sure your manicure is ruined already."

Ellis cast an annoyed glare back at P.J, and then looked at Soles inquisitively. Soles shrugged and smiled apologetically. She had learned to deal with the chauvinistic hunter's attitude a while ago. Ellis blew air out between her lips, then turned around and walked over to assist the others.

The ditch, while being deep enough to sink the front of the jeep, was thankfully not that wide, being a little less than a meter across. If the motor hadn't been clogged with mud, the jeep should still be serviceable. Richley certainly hoped so, because he wasn't sure they'd be able to get to the mountain on foot before his deadline expired. 

Carlson, after erecting a makeshift tent for the GRTX module, had begun work on getting the jeep out of the hole. As per his instructions, Richley and P.J. and chopped down a likely looking tree nearby. The trunk looked solid and it was long, but not so thick as to be unwieldy. They had then dragged it across the ground to the jeep. The rain was still falling, and the level of silt in the ditch was slowly rising. They dropped one end of trunk into the silt, and pushed it into the mud and under the jeep. The part that was still exposed they had brought in line with a large but short flat rock.

By pressing down on the raised part of the tree trunk, it acted like a crude lever and raised the front of the jeep. But the watery mud exerted a suction force that persisted in defeating their efforts. Ellis joined Richley and P.J. at the log, and added her strength of theirs. The front of the jeep rose, moving slightly forwards as the trunk slid against the wheels. But the straining men and women had to concede defeat once again.

"Carlson," P.J. grumbled. "Stop playing supervisor and help us out with this thing."

Carlson, who had been following the effort from the jeep's front, jumped over the gap. He landed on the edge and started making pinwheels with his arms. For a moment, Richley was afraid that Carlson would lose his balance and plunge his considerable mass into the mud. But the technician recovered, and, slightly embarrassed, joined the others at the log. Adding his substantial weight to the push, the jeep rose even farther this time.

Finally, they heard a popping sound as the front of the jeep raised out of the mud. The silt bubbled and gurgled, spewing some material in the air, then quickly filled the gap left by the jeep with the sound of sloshing mud. Still resting against the log, the front wheels of the jeep were pushed forwards until they had come to rest on the other side of the divide.

The jeep now stood with its front wheels on one side of the gap and the back ones still stuck on this side. Cutting the log down into smaller segments, Richley slid the round truncated tree trunk under the jeep's carriage. When three such segments spanned the surface of the ditch, they unloaded the jeep of all it's extra weight, and then pushed it across.

The logs under them sunk, but not enough to as to mire the jeep again. With a final, hard push they raised the back end of the jeep onto solid ground again. Carlson checked the jeep's engine, and was pleased to report that although some mud had gotten under the hood, the engine was not clogged up and would still run for a few days without needing maintenance. Then they constructed another log bridge, and carried the equipment they had taken out across.

"We should mark this spot for when we come back," P.J. said as they finished reloading the jeep.

Richley nodded his assent, and shortly thereafter another set of thin trees had been cut down and placed in an **X pattern on the ground, as a warning for the ditch when they would pass here on their way back to the camp. Which would be tomorrow, if all went well.**


	7. Sections 39 to 43 - Intruder

Disclaimer: John Hammond, InGen, Jurassic Park, Isla Nebular and Isla Sorna are all things that I have unconscionably stolen from Michael Crichton's novels Jurassic Park and The Lost World, as well as the movies of the same name. I have drawn on both forms of media (the books and the movies) for this story. It does not follow one or the other specifically… it is implied that John Hammond is still alive in this story, but I use dinosaur elements from the books… and a few that were in neither. None of the characters from Jurassic Park or Lost World, in either variation, appear in this story. Instead, I have chosen to plunk down a new set of characters on the island. The events described take place sometime between the Jurassic Park Incident and the San Diego Incident. Well, I guess that's all there is to say, except… enjoy the story.

#### Los Cinquo Muertes

##### Chapter 1: Survey

**In this instalment:**

39. Discrepancies

40. Three Horns and a Trailer

41. Intruder

42. Collaring the Lion

43. Turbulence

**39**

DISCREPANCIES

Upon their return to the campsite, Meiller and the others set up a covered area protected by the rain by stretching out a large tarp and tying the corners to the four foldable shelters. By doing so, they allowed the members of the survey team to come out from the trailers and shelters without having to worry about being drenched by the torrential rain, which had not shown any signs of relenting since it had begun that morning.

Lunch had consisted of a platter of sandwiches, which had become soggy in the oppressive humidity of the island's climate. The team members had munched dispassionately at their food without speaking, their silence filled by the sound of rain falling on the tarp, shelters and trailers.

Afterwards, there wasn't anything much to do but wait. Everybody was restless, moving from one point of the impromptu tent to another. Only Meiller and his soldiers seemed to be more or less at ease – for soldiers, that is.

Alice was sitting on an empty crate, holding herself for warmth and staring off into their dreary surroundings. Benny walked over to her, smiled and said:

"Mind if I mull here with you?"

"By all means, pull up a crate," Alice replied, cracking a smile.

Benny did so, taking another crate that was lying nearby and flipping it over so that he had a flat surface to sit on. He placed it next to Alice and straddled it.

"So where have you been?" Alice asked. "I haven't seen you since you got back this morning."

"I was over in the trailer. I'd found a few entries relating to dinosaurs in our computer encyclopaedias, so I figured that while I was waiting I might as well look up some information. I managed to find an entry for all the species on the island – well, that is, for all the species that we've seen so far. There might be some we haven't seen."

"Ugh. Please don't say that. I think there's plenty of them running around right now without throwing in some more species."

"Sorry."

There was a heavy silence as the dropped topic seemed to hang in the air.

"You know," Benny finally said, "I've noticed something weird about this island."

If Benny had suddenly grown an arm out of his ear, Alice couldn't have given him a more shocked look. Seeing her wide-eyed stare, Benny quickly added:

"I mean, something else that's weird. On top of what we've got already."

"I probably don't want to hear this, but go ahead anyway."

"Well, along with quick description of the dinosaurs, the encyclopaedia also included an estimate of when they existed. You know that humans and dinosaurs never co-existed, right?"

"Well, duh."

"Right. Well, anyway, the dinosaurs as we know them existed during the era of geological time known as the Mesozoic, which in turn is subdivided into the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. The dinosaurs appeared during the late Triassic and went on all the way to the end of the Cretaceous, when they suddenly went extinct."

"_Supposedly_ went extinct," Alice pointed out.

"Yeah, well, that's what I'm getting to. I don't think these dinosaurs are descendents of survivors of the KT event."

"KT event?"

"Sorry. That's the name given to whatever happened at the end of the Cretaceous that caused the mass extinction. Anyway, the point is that between the appearance of the first dinosaurs and their extinction, there was over 150 million years."

Alice whistled softly. "So they were around longer than they've been gone."

"Yes, and much longer than us. In that period of time, there were species upon species, all of which evolved, thrived and died out over millions of years, rotating continuously just like old mammals."

"Yeah, so?"

"The problem is: the species on this island don't correspond. Most seem to come from the late Cretaceous – the T-Rex, the Triceratops, the Ankylosaurus and that ostrich thing that I've tentatively identified as Gallimimus – although even there, there are discrepancies of sometimes a dozen million years. But even worse, I think that Tiny might be a Compsognathus. And they lived in the late Jurassic – a difference of almost eighty million years."

"Big difference."

"Tell me about it."

"So… what does it all mean?"

"It means that I'm almost certain now that this dinosaur ecosystem isn't natural. I mean, unless there's been some kind of multiple rifts in various timeframes that they came through – and I'm not even going to start explaining what's wrong with that idea."

"How, then?"

Benny blew air out his lips and rocked back on his crate.

"Well, that's the million dollar question, isn't it?" There was a moment of silence as Benny thought. "Ellis said something about the company that had said up here being involved in genetics. It could be that they built – genetically engineered – these animals. But that doesn't work either. You have to have some kind of base plate for that kind of construction – and there haven't been any valid base plates in millions of years."

Alice shrugged vaguely. She didn't know anything about that.

"So what's the point? What difference does it make to us if the ecosystem is natural or not?"

"If it's artificial, there might be a way to reverse whatever process resulted in having dinosaurs here."

"I think we should focus on getting off the island first. Then we can nuke 'em or whatever."

"That wouldn't be much of a solution."

"Well, yeah, I mean, I was joking."

"I meant a solution to a greater problem. If the dinosaurs came into being here through artificial means, then very likely those methods could be repeated. Not just here, but anywhere else in the world."

Alice had the sudden image of cities overrun with prehistoric behemoths. She felt gooseflesh rise on her arms.

**40**

THREE HORNS AND A TRAILER

Lorkon Folker had eventually retreated to the covered area with the rest of the team after a few minutes in the downpour. A little rain was one thing, but these torrential showers would leave him sneezing and sniffling for a week if he stayed in them. 

He was catching a quick breather resting against the muddied side of one of the trailers when he heard a slight clanging noise. At first, he dismissed it as being no more than the usual clatter of cutlery characteristic of any dinner, but glancing over at the centre of the covered area, he saw that lunch had been over for a while now. He saw the rain falling beyond their relatively dry haven, and from the straight angle of the drops' descent, he could tell that there was no wind blowing to produce the soft metallic noise either.

Intrigued, he rose to his feet and concentrated on listening. The sound seemed to be coming from rather close by. Tracking its source, Folker bent down towards the soggy ground. This time, the clanging sound was accompanied by something that could be best described as snuffling. Folker leaned in the mud and, bracing himself with his hands, peered under the trailer.

From this new perspective, Folker could see that he hadn't been the only one who had wished to look under the trailer. Sticking out underneath the trailer from the other side of the rectangular attachment was the bony head of a dinosaur.

Folker could only see the animal's head as the rest was blocked out either by the trailer itself, or by the round, bony crest that was part of its head. The frill was dotted with small pieces of bone polished by the elements. Two eyes were set into the beast's mottled grey-brown skin and they were topped by horns almost half-a-meter in length. The dinosaur's head ended in a sleek black piece of bone on the jaw and the corresponding location above the creature's mouth that looked almost like a beak one would find on parakeets, giving the creature an avian look despite the menacing horns. A smaller horn topped the 'beak' area.

The dinosaur seemed to not have noticed Folker's observation as it continued to sniff at the muddy ground under the trailer, and the blackened trailer components that hung above their heads. Folker thought it looked like a smaller version of the Triceratopses they had seen in the clearing – possibly an infant.

"Hey, you," he whispered.

The Triceratops ceased its snuffling and looked up at Folker, drawn by the new sound. It seemed to regard Folker for a moment, and then it began bleating in an alarmed way.

"No, no, no, calm down," Folker attempted to shush the young dinosaur.

But his efforts were to no avail as the Triceratops seemed to become even more agitated. It tried to yank itself back out from under the trailer, but did so too abruptly. The bony frill that protected its neck from predators got struck in some of the gears that assured the proper functioning of the trailer. The Triceratops' bleating redoubled as it tried to extract itself from the cramped, dark space.

Folker ineffectively tried to silence the beast, but the trapped Triceratops refused to be cajoled by the strange animal calling to it, and tried to forcibly dislodge itself from it's snare underneath the trailer. It seemed to pause for an instance, then yank it's head backwards. Although the crest remained stuck, the force of the Triceratops' pull was so hard that the trailer actually rocked. This seemed to give the dinosaur an idea, as he brought his head upwards so that his large horns touched the base of the trailer's floor. With a bestial grunt, the Triceratops pushed against the bottom of the trailer, causing it to lift slightly.

Folker saw what the creature was doing, and saw furthermore that with each blow against the floor of the trailer, the trailer leaned over more and more. Putting two and two together, Folker scrambled out from underneath the tipsy trailer and tried to get to his feet. He had one leg up when the other slipped in a patch of mud and brought the botanist back down to the ground again, though he was out from under the trailer. 

Looking up, Folker could see the top of the trailer shift against the cloudy backdrop of the sky as the Triceratops gave yet another mighty shove. It returned back to it's original position, then shifted forwards once again. This time, however, it did not hover in the air as before but kept on arcing towards him. Folker cursed as he realized that the trailer was going to fall on him if he did not move fast. Since getting up had not worked before (and he doubted he had the time anyway), Folker pushed off to one side with a hand and a foot, then wrapped both his arms around himself and tried to place his shoulders so as to continue to momentum created by his initial shove-off. This had the effect of making the botanist go rolling through the mud, spinning on a head-to-toe axis.

He did not stop until he heard the wet, sucking sound of the trailer hitting the muddy ground, at which point there was nothing left to do either way. He tentatively opened his eyes, and saw a puddle that seemed to stretch to the limits of his vision. With a start, he realized that he was looking at the ground. He felt something wet on one side of his head and pulled an arm out from under him to run his fingers against his cheeks. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw his fingers come away not with blood, as he had feared, but with plain, ordinary mud, which had no doubt splattered against his face when the trailer fell. 

Speaking of which…

Folker finally glanced over to his side. Lying a mere thirty centimetres away was the ribbed roof of the trailer. Folker released a breath he was not aware he had been holding, and then dropped his head back into the puddle.

**41**

INTRUDER

** **

****Benny was still sitting next to Alice when he heard the first of the odd bleating noises. The sounds, though foreign to their ears, nevertheless had an air of urgency to them, like an alert klaxon on a submarine. Benny sprung off of his crate and sprinted towards the source of the noise, Alice a few steps behind him.

They skidded to a halt in the mud in front of the trailer just as Folker spun out from underneath the toppling attachment. The trailer landed relatively softly, the brunt of its impact taken by the muddy ground. Benny, Alice and the other gathered team members were splashed with silt thrown into the air.

Lying on its side, the trailer was not as high as when it stood upright, so Benny could see over the top of the trailer and past it to the animal prancing about behind it. He instantly recognized it as a Triceratops, much like the herd they had seen in the clearing. This one, however, was barely a meter high and shorter than his brethren at the watering hole. Benny deduced that it was not yet fully mature.

Meiller rushed in next to Folker and lifted him by the shoulders from the puddle he had been resting in.

"It's okay, I'm alright," Folker said, kneeling in the mud and waving away Meiller's assistance.

"Are you sure?" he inquired.

"I'll be fine," Folker reiterated, rising shakily to his feet.

The Triceratops, which had been shaking its head as if to assure itself that its crest was well and verily dislodged, froze as it noticed it was the centre of attention.

"What happened?" Benny asked.

"That thing," Folker said, pointing to the Triceratops, "was sniffing around under the trailer, then it got stuck. So it started hitting at the bottom, and toppled the trailer over."

The Triceratops had by now decided that it did not like the oddly coloured bipeds any more than it did being stuck under the trailer, and resumed its bleating noises. It sounded more like the honking of a car horn than a klaxon this time, but it was still loud. In addition, there were several empty cans attached to a piece of string hanging from its two main horns. The Triceratops had ensnared part of the stringed-up perimeter alarm as it crossed the boundary into the encampment; the sound of the metal cans striking each other were what had alerted Folker to a foreign presence in the first place.

The dinosaur began ducking it's head at the assembled group and pawing at the ground. It looked like a bull readying itself to charge, only no bull had ever been born with a trio of hard horns sticking out of its head.

Meiller stared at the creature for a moment, and then unslung his rifle and brought it to bear at the Triceratops.

"No!" Benny cried out, grabbing the barrel of the weapon and pushing it skywards.

"Look, this is no time for animal activism. We can hug a bunch of trees once we've gotten this potential bulldozer out of our camp."

"Slaughtering innocent animals aside, have you thought about what would happen if you do shot that thing?" Benny asked the corporal. "You shot, it dies, and we find ourselves with a big dead Triceratops in the middle of our camp. Now the smell of fresh blood from the bullet wound is going to start attracting predators, and once the predatory dinosaurs on this island realize that there's a pile of ready-to-eat meat sitting right here, we're going to have an influx of carrion along with the bigger carnivores."

"So we move the body."

"Do you have any idea how much the carcass of a dinosaur, even an infant, weighs? Neither do I, but I'd be willing to bet that it's a substantial amount. Assuming we can mount the dead body onto a jeep and drive away, it's still going to take time to get it loaded, which is more time that the campsite is at risk. And even then, that Rex had one of the greatest olfactory senses ever in recorded palaeontology. There's nothing to guarantee that once it pigs out on the carcass, it won't follow the scent back here."

"So what would you have us do? We can't let it stay here. It's already knocked over one trailer. Besides, that honking of his is sure to bring some curious animals to check out this place as any smell is."

"Well, we have to find a way to lure it away from the campsite."

"How do we do that?"

"I'm not sure yet."

"Great. That figures."

"How about we attach so food on a string to one of the trailers and drive away from here, the dinosaur following," Alice proposed.

"Not a bad idea," Meiller pondered. "Anybody got a piece of steak or something?"

"A Triceratops won't eat or follow a steak," Benny said. "It's a herbivore – a vegetarian."

"Are you telling me," Meiller asked, pointing to the three-horned beast, "that that monster wouldn't go for a nice juicy steak if given the opportunity?"

"No more than a deer would," Benny answered.

"So what does it eat?"

"Judging from the position of its head and the shape of its beak," Folker put in, "I'd say that its diet must consist of shrubbery, ferns, and maybe the occasional piece of fallen fruit."

"We can't exactly tie a fruit basket to a jeep and hope it follows," Meiller pointed out.

The Triceratops brayed, reminding everybody of its immediate and potentially lethal presence. Meiller kept his rifle trained on the beast. If it made any moves towards the assembled group, he would shoot. Let them deal with the consequences once the immediate danger was out of the way.

"Alright, the fruit idea is out," Folker said. "So what do we do now?"

Benny stared at the dinosaur, looking for inspiration. It wasn't making any forward gestures, but neither had it calmed down. It's paws beat against the ground, splashing in the mud. Its head kept ducking and rising, the metal cans on the string snared around its horn clanging against each other…

"That's it! The string! We can lasso it!"

Alice gave him an odd look.

"Lasso? Like cowboys do to cows?"

"Sure. We get a loop around its neck, tie that to a jeep and lead it away from the camp."

"And I don't suppose you would _have_ a lasso handy, just lying around somewhere?" Meiller inquired.

"Well, no. But I could probably make one quickly with a little help."

"Fine. Do it. But if that thing comes any closer, it's dead meat."

Benny grabbed Calvin, one of the workhorses, and rushed off to one of the two remaining trailers to build a lasso before the infant Triceratops got too edgy.

**42**

COLLARING THE LION

Alice and the rest of the team stood around unmoving, staring at the Triceratops while Benny and Calvin worked on crafting a lasso. It continued to paw the ground for a few moments, then stopped. It brayed once again, though the alarm seemed to be gone from its voice. It began to snuffle at the ground.

"What's it doing?" Alice asked Folker.

"Don't look at me. Benny's the biologist."

Alice glanced at him, and then turned back towards the Triceratops. She wondered if it had caught scent of something on the ground, because it seemed pretty interested by it. It raised its head back up at the group, cocked to the side. In doing so, the cans on the string clicked together, and the Triceratops looked up sharply, trying to find out where the sound had come from. Since the string was ensnared on its horns, it was unsuccessful in its attempts.

"I wonder…" Alice muttered to herself. She took a few tentative steps towards it.

"Uh, Alice? What are you doing?" Folker asked.

"Removing the thorn from the lion's paw," she answered, keeping her gaze focused on the dinosaur in front of her.

"I'm not sure that's a very wise idea, Miss Richley," Meiller said.

But Alice ignored him, and continued walking towards the Triceratops at a calm, measured pace. It tracked her with its eyes, but did not make any aggressive moves.

When Alice had reached its height she stopped, and starting moving her hand outwards. The team watched with bated breath as her hand hovered in the air, then slowly slipped towards the Triceratops' head.

When she made contact, the dinosaur didn't so much as flinch. The skin beneath her hand felt scaly and leathery, like that of a snake's, but it also held warmth that came from under the creature's skin, rather than simply being the lingering heat from the sun like other reptiles she had handled.

Slowly, so as to not startle the Triceratops, she reached for the string with the metal cans. She picked it up by the cans themselves, because she was afraid that if she picked it up the string, the cans would clang against each other, and the Triceratops might suddenly move its head to find the source of the sound, goring her with one of it's horns in the process.

Once she had removed the importuning cans, she slowly walked away from the Triceratops. When she had reached the rest of the group, she stopped and put them down. The Triceratops was still looking at her, and it seemed much more relaxed than before.

"That wasn't very smart," Folker told her. "You could have gotten hurt."

Alice shrugged.

"But I didn't."

Folker was about to reply, when Benny and Calvin returned from the trailer.

"What took you so long?" Meiller asked, not having budged from his isosceles stance, eye still in the aiming cylinder on his rifle.

"Sorry. This stuff isn't very malleable, even with our tools. It was hard to bend without breaking it."

"That's not rope," Folker observed.

"It's fiber cable. Looking at the size of that thing, I wasn't sure ordinary rope would hold."

Benny held in his hands the cable, made of several smaller strands and coloured dark blue.

"How do we get it around its neck?" Meiller asked.

"Can't we just throw it?" Folker replied.

"Around that neck crest? I don't think any loop large enough to let that frill pass through would hold on its neck."

"That's right," Benny said. "We're going to have to tie it around its neck."

"Really? Give it to me then," Alice said.

"Uh… I'm not sure–"

"Trust me on this one, Benny. It knows me."

Alice took the cable from his hands, and began slowly walking towards the Triceratops. It glanced up at Alice as she approached, then went back to snuffling the ground, as if the young woman was of no concern to him.

Standing next to the Triceratops, Alice glanced at the impromptu rope in her hands. Benny and Calvin had made it flexible, so she could easily loop it around the Triceratops' neck just by leaning over its body a bit. Once she had the end of the cable in one hand, she tied a knot to complete the loop, leaving a little room for slack. No sense in strangling the poor thing, after all.

If the Triceratops noticed that it had just been collared, it gave no indication of it. Alice backed off, slowly, and handed the other end of the cable to Meiller, who had placed his rifle back in the holster against his hip. Keeping an eye on the dinosaur, Meiller walked over to one of the jeeps and tied the other end of the cable to the attachment previously used for the trailers.

Once the rig was prepared, he got into the jeep and started the engine. The jeep began to crawl along the muddy ground. When the cable tensed between the somewhat mobile jeep and the immobile dinosaur, the Triceratops gave a little hoot as the cable began pulling its neck.

For a moment, Benny was worried that it would try and fight the pull of the cable, but the Triceratops took a few steps forwards and ceased struggling when it saw that doing so relieved the tension around it's neck. As the distance between the jeep and the dinosaur increased, the cable pulled, and the Triceratops took another few steps forward.

This went on for almost two hours, because Meiller didn't want to upset it or even choke it by cranking up the speed on his jeep. Their procession through the jungle was a slow one, but after the second hour Meiller decided that they were now far enough from the campsite that he could release the beast without worrying that it would come and bother them again. The Triceratops was a little edgy at first when Meiller approached it, but when it saw that the odd-looking biped was trying to get the thing around it's neck off, it let the corporal remove the cable collar. Free, the Triceratops resumed snuffling at the silt on the surface.

Meiller hopped back into the jeep and pulled a U-turn in the tight confines of the jungle. He crawled past the Triceratops at low speeds so as not to irk it, but once he was a few meters past he pushed the jeep back up to it's maximum and headed back to the campsite with all due haste.

**43**

TURBULENCE

** **

As far as assignments go, Linda Howshenski thought this one was rather pleasant.

She had spent the last few days lounging on a sandy beach on a tropical island. It was like a paid vacation. Sure, he had to make certain that the plane was kept in tip-top condition, especially after the call they'd gotten from Samson about the other plane crashing. And granted, it was a bit worrisome that they hadn't been able to raise the survey team. But what little she did do was still a welcome break from the usual demanding schedule of an Air Force pilot.

Not even the torrential rain could put a damper on her good mood. She thought the sudden change in weather was surprising, and it had rained all day long with almost constant force. Not having visited areas with such rainy seasons before, the downpour held for her the interest of a novelty.

The plane's sass was open so that she could sit on the side, staring out into the rain. The sand of the beach had long ago turned a dark brown, but the foliage beyond the beach almost seemed to glow with a lively green. Leaves and ferns swished as fat drops of water from the heavens pelted them. In the background, above the din of the rain, she could hear the occasional trilling of birdcalls.

One of them sounded remarkably close by, in fact. Rather large, too.

Intrigued, Howshenski scanned the lush jungle perimeter for signs of life. Other than birds and one gecko, they hadn't seen any of the island's fauna during their sojourn. She thought she spotted a dark shape looming in the leaves, and she reached over for her binoculars to get a better look. As she did so, the shape separated itself from the surrounding jungle and stepped onto the beach.

"What the hell?" Howshenki whispered, dropping her binoculars as the creature on the beach was more than big enough to be seen without aid.

It was a sinewy thing, standing a little over a meter on a pair of muscular looking hind legs. A long, thin tail swished behind it, tracing arcs in the sand. A pair of arms protruded from the side of its body, bent at the elbows, fingers (_or are those claws?_) hanging. The head looked like something out of a science fiction B-movie, distinctively reptilian and mounted on a neck that looked as thick and well built as its legs. It had two eyes, and they seemed to be staring straight at her.

"Hey, Darren, come over here and check this out."

Her co-pilot walked up behind her, and quickly spotted the odd beast on the dark sand.

"What is that?"

"Damned if I know," Howshenski replied.

The creature craned it's neck skywards, and made noise like a cough or a bark, only much more mellifluous. A few seconds later, another animal just like it emerged from the jungle, and then a third after that.

"I'm not sure I like how this is turning out," Husser said.

"Me neither. Close the sass," she instructed, getting out of the opening, her hand instinctively falling next to her sidearm.

Two more of the creatures came out of the jungle, and together the creatures launched themselves at the plane. Howshenski was impressed by their speed and grace. They reminded her of sleek fighter jets, on the prowl for enemies to prey on.

"Close the sass," she repeated as she drew her pistol. As Husser closed the door, she fired off three shots. Two hit the beach, doing no more than rising some sand, but the third round lodged itself firmly in the leg of one of the beasts, causing it to cry out as it toppled to the ground.

Then the metal frame of the door blocked her view. She waited to see if she would hear the resounding impact of those things smashing into the side of the plane, but ominous silence reigned.

"What the hell were those things?" Husser finally asked.

Howshenski shook her head, choosing not to reply since she didn't know the answer.

Something thumped above them.

"They're on the roof!" Husser cried out.

"Cockpit," Howshenski instructed, and sprinted towards the front of the plane herself.

She pulled up short when she saw through the cockpit window a couple of the beasts standing on the nose of the plane. From this close, they could see that the creatures had sharp claws on their feet and hands, and when one opened it's mouth to hiss at them, rows of dangerously pointy looking teeth.

Husser scowled and ground his teeth together.

"Whatever they are, they aren't bullet proof," he said, taking his pistol out of his holster and aiming at the monsters.

"No!" Howshenski screamed, making a grab at his gun arm, but it was too late. Husser fired several round into the nearest beast, fracturing the window and sending it sprawling off the nose of the plane. Husser didn't have time to realize the extend of his mistake before another of the creature broke through what remained of the cockpit window and lanced it's head right at his throat, gripping it in its jaws.

Howshenski brought her own firearm to bear, blowing whatever passed as the creature's brains clear out of the other side of its skull. Released, Husser fell to the floor, and Howshenski could see that his tour of duty as her co-pilot was now effectively terminated. The beast had ripped a huge chunk of meat right out of Husser's neck, which was now bleeding profusely because there was a gaping hole where part of his jugular once was. Husser twitched on the floor, but they were no more than death spasms.

Howshenski jumped back as another one snapped its head through the window, biting at her. A lot more of them had arrived by now, and they had begun squirming through the shattered glass to get at the inside of the plane. Howshenski fired a few more rounds, then turned around and fled into the passenger compartment.

She had seen these things run, and she knew that there was no way that she could escape from the plane on foot. The monsters were in the cockpit, so she couldn't get at the controls, although with one of the cockpit windows blown out, there wasn't much point in that. She still had some ammo left, though she was outnumbered, and considering the agility that they had shown she doubted she'd last long in a straight out fight.

She spotted the restroom at the back of the passenger compartment. Depending on their sense of smell, she might be able to hide there. It was a slim chance at best, but it was the best she'd come up with so far, so she rushed towards it. She threw the door open, fell onto the seat, closed the door again and locked it, all in one swift gesture. Alone in the cramped space, she popped out the clip from her pistol and inserted a fresh magazine.

Once again, there were no sounds to be heard. If the animals were still in the plane, they were being rather stealthy about it. Howshenski began to hope that they had left, although she wasn't going to open the door to check.

A sniffing sound shattered that hope. She could tell it came from right outside her door, at ground level. There were another set of those honk/barks she had heard them emit earlier, and suddenly the door began to shake as something was apparently throwing itself at it. As the shape of the door began being marked by dents from the other side, Howshenski raised her pistol and pointed it at the deformed door.

"Come on, you assholes. Come and get me."

The door broke down, and they did.


	8. Sections 44 to 48 - InGen

Disclaimer: John Hammond, InGen, Jurassic Park, Isla Nebular and Isla Sorna are all things that I have unconscionably stolen from Michael Crichton's novels Jurassic Park and The Lost World, as well as the movies of the same name. I have drawn on both forms of media (the books and the movies) for this story. It does not follow one or the other specifically… it is implied that John Hammond is still alive in this story, but I use dinosaur elements from the books… and a few that were in neither. None of the characters from Jurassic Park or Lost World, in either variation, appear in this story. Instead, I have chosen to plunk down a new set of characters on the island. The events described take place sometime between the Jurassic Park Incident and the San Diego Incident. Well, I guess that's all there is to say, except… enjoy the story.

Los Cinquo Muertes Chapter 1: Survey

**In this instalment:**

44. Skybreak

45. Platform

46. InGen

47. Failure

48. Embryo

**44**

SKYBREAK

For those in the jeep, two drones covered any smaller sounds that might be heard in the jungle. One was the hum of the engine, thankfully still working adequately despite their little run-in with the muddy pit a few hours back. The other was the steady sound of drizzling rain hitting the foliage above, blending into a constant platter. Occasionally, through the leaves above, they could see the overcast sky. The lack of sunlight, combined with the thick overhead of the jungle, cast the trail-blazing jeep in shadows.

The break came suddenly, without even a dimming in the quantity or thickness of the jungle foliage as a warning. One minute they were surrounded by lush trees and ferns, and the next they were out of the jungle and onto a patch of rocky scrubland.

Richley lifted his foot from the gas pedal, letting the jeep come to a slow stop and idle in place. The occupants of the jeep took the opportunity to stretch and look around. Behind them, the jungle stood like a wall of vegetation. The transition from jungle to these foothills seemed to be as sudden as they had thought it was. Barely a few struggling ferns pushed beyond the main bulk of the jungle. Around them, the ground was rocky and hard, not conductive to larger forms of plant life. Because of the rain, the soil had a distinctively brown colour, splotched here and there with traces of grey rock. The transition from one environment to another was slightly disconcerting.

More rewarding was the sight up ahead: the island's central mountain. In looked slightly hazy because of the drizzle, but Richley estimated that with the harder, more stable ground of the foothills, it would only take them an hour at most to get to the mountain. They would be there shortly before sundown.

Soles traded a look of relief with Ellis. The cartographer hadn't shared her worries about their direction (or lack thereof) with any of the others, but the sight of the mountain in front of them removed any lingering doubt.

"It's about time we got out of that jungle. It's so damp in there," Carlson grumbled from the front seat.

Ellis fished out a pair of binoculars from one of the packs and stood up in the seat. She brought the instrument to her eyes and began scanning the vista.

"Logically, InGen should have built some kind of road to lead up to their main complex," she said. "Even in disrepair, it could be useful."

"I don't think so," Richley said. "I estimate that we'll reach the mountain in about an hour anyway. Who knows how much time it'll take us to even find that road?"

"I guess so," Ellis acknowledged. She brought the binoculars to bear on the mountain. She looked over the rock face until something incongruous caught her eye. "I think I can see part of the complex now. It's not too clear what…"

"We'll see soon enough," Richley said. "Strap yourself back in. I want to do this while we still have daylight left."

As Ellis hunched back down into the jeep, Richley shifted the gear and the mud-splattered vehicle began moving forwards again. As the jeep drove over the lumpy ground, the rain slowly began to clear up, and a silhouetted circle of a sun shone through a patch of thin cloud. Richley mused that things were definitely beginning to look up.

**45**

PLATFORM

"This really sucks."

Richley stood at the foot of a hard, rocky slope, absently tugging on the straps of his backpack. The ground under his shoes was lumpy, strewn with little pebbles that insisted on trying to pierce his soles.

"If Folker were here, he'd say that at least you're getting some exercise," Soles commented, gripping a piece of rock and hauling herself upwards.

"Yeah, well, he's not here, so I get to complain," Carlson retorted from below.

Richley gave Ellis a boost up to join him on the small plateau, then turned back and looked up at the metallic platform up ahead. Once they had got closer, they'd been able to see that the piece of the complex Ellis had glimpsed through the binoculars before was some kind of platform, made from grille and overlooking this side of the mountain's foothills. P.J was quick to point out the tactical use of such an emplacement: it gave anybody on it a grand view of the surrounding area. Ellis agreed that it was probably some kind of lookout post, and that the main complex itself was probably somewhere behind it, presumably on another flank of the mountain.

The problem was that since this was barely a small fraction of the actual InGen complex, there was no clear path to access it. Ellis had again proposed that they should try looking for a road, which would presumably lead to the main buildings, but Richley had disagreed. With no idea of the exact location of the complex via the mountain, they were better off focusing on the part that they had found instead of wasting what daylight remained trying to find another part.

So they had abandoned the jeep once it could no longer handle the sloping terrain of the foothills, taking with them as much as they could cram into their backpacks. They planned on returning to the jeep, of course – they couldn't very well return to the clearing for the airlift without it – but they didn't want to travel at night and might have to set up shop in the building complex until tomorrow.

Since the jeep was out of the equation because of the slope, the five team members had no choice but to hike up to the platform, much to Carlson's annoyance. The rocky texture aided their climb be providing secure hand holds, but loose rocks could also be a problem, causing someone to slip and tumble down.

Carlson had balked at having the GTRX module taken away from him, but he'd reluctantly agreed that as the most agile and in-shape member of their small party, P.J. should be the one to carry it in his backpack. They certainly hadn't come all this way just so that someone could fall flat on their backs and crush the precious communications module in doing so.

The switch seemed to have paid off. Whereas Carlson had so far avoided any serious missteps, his climbing skills were clumsy at best. P.J., on the other hand, had no such difficulties, jumping from rock to rock with practiced ease. He had been able to proceed faster than the rest of them, and was at this moment hauling himself up onto the platform.

Ramanta Soles, also physically well honed, gripped an outcropping and pulled herself upwards until she was just below the platform.

"P.J., give me a boost!"

The scowling hunter delicately placed his backpack against the platform's railing, then reached down. Soles grabbed his outstretched hand and the platform's base, allowing herself to be pulled up. The cartographer deftly swung her legs over the railing and onto the metallic grillage of the platform.

As Richley, Ellis and Carlson continued to struggle upwards to the platform, Soles took the opportunity to look around. Set into the mountain, the platform gave her a great view of the island – the part not blocked off by the mountain's flanks, that is. In front of her, the rocky slope seemed much smaller, blending in with the lowlands at the end of the jungle. The verdant jungle stretched out for a while before giving way to the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. The waters, a dark colour in the glow of the setting sun save for the single burning spot that was the reflection of the celestial body itself, stretched out into the horizons. While the sun was indeed visible, Soles could see another set of storm clouds approaching the island.

Although the angle at which the platform overlooked the island and canopy cover didn't allow her to see them, Soles' training let her eyeball with relative accuracy the locations of their temporary camp, the clearing where they'd encountered the Rex, and beyond that the beach and the waiting plane. Speaking of which…

"Hey, Brent," Soles called out, leaning over the platform's railing, "This platform should be elevated enough for us to get a signal over the trees high enough so that the plane's instruments could receive it."

"Great," Richley answered, climbing over the last few meters before the platform. "Start getting ready."

As Soles rummaged through his backpack for the GTRX module, P.J. once again leaned over the platform railing to help the other team members up. Richley cupped his hands together and Ellis slid a foot inside, giving her an extra boost up. She grabbed a hold of the railings and slid over with P.J.'s help. Richley jumped up to seize the grillage, and then snaked out one hand to seize a piece of railing. P.J. caught his hand and pulled him the rest of the way up.

After thanking P.J. and dusting himself off, he walked over to Soles. She had located the module and withdrawn in from the bag, and was studying it intensely.

"How long do you think it will take to set all this up?" he inquired. 

"With Carlson's help?" She nodded towards the struggling technician. "Fifteen minutes, maybe half-an-hour."

"Good," Ellis said, taking a flashlight. "That'll give me some time to investigate this complex, see if I can't find their records archive and grab some documents."

"Are you sure you want to go in there?" Soles asked, glancing at the shadowed buildings beyond the platform.

"That's my job," Ellis answered. "It's why I tagged along with this group."

"Well, you're not going in there alone," Richley said, looking in his own backpack. "All we need now is for someone to get lost or hurt."

"I'm coming too," P.J. said. "I don't know much about these critters, but those things look too much like caves for my comfort."

"Are you sure? What about Carlson and Soles?" Richley asked.

"From up here, they can see anything coming from a kilometre away, and they have plenty of time to beat a retreat before any dino manages to climb up here. And if there's anything over there…" P.J. pointed to the InGen complex with his rifle, "Well, we'll run into it first."

"There's a pleasant thought," Richley said, going back into his pack for a pistol.

Ellis started walking down the grillage into the main complex when they heard a cry from below:

"Hey, a little help here?"

Peering over, Soles saw beefy Lorkon Carlson standing below the platform, looking up, upturned hands held out in front of him. Soles suppressed a smile: Carlson looked like a fish out of water, staring at the platform above.

"Ellis," Richley said, "we have to help Carlson up first. Wait for us a few second, alright?"

Ellis nodded her approval, and the team members turned back to the somewhat embarrassed technician below.

**46**

INGEN

After Carlson had been brought up through a concerted effort, Ellis, Richley and P.J. had left the technician and the cartographer to figure out how to contact the plane while they descended into the bowels of the InGen complex. Pretty soon they had to turn on their flashlights: the flanks of the mountain created natural shadowing under most conditions, but with the sun almost down the buildings had submitted to the shadows.

Ellis was leading the trio, her flashlight sweeping over the metallic railings. The grillage from the platform had led to the side of a large building, shaped in a somewhat dome-like fashion. A narrow corridor ran the length of the cupola, but Ellis figured that the main function of these passageways was to provide maintenance access and wouldn't lead to anything more interesting than what they had left.

A few meters to the left, however, a flight of stairs branched off and led down into the main portion of the building. Being careful to watch their step with the flashlights (fortunately, this part of the complex seemed to have been made out of a plastic polymer and thus was still largely intact despite being abandoned), the three made their way down.

The beams of their flashlights passed over dozens of computer terminals, all of them dead. While there weren't any traces of human refuse – indicating that when InGen left, they did so in an orderly fashion – the investigative trio couldn't help but feel as if they had just walked into a ghost town. The spiders had long reclaimed the space taken up by man, weaving their webs across monitors, chairs and anything else that was available.

"Hey, I found the light switch," Richley said, flipping it. It made a dull clicking sound that echoed in the emptiness, but nothing else happened. "Damn."

"I wouldn't expect this old place to do us any favours, Richley," Ellis said, continuing her walk down the rows of computers. "Whatever juice the generators had left when the good folks at InGen left must have been longed drained by now."

"Which means that you won't be able to turn on the computer to find anything that might be of interest."

"I know," Ellis said, sounding none too happy about it. "I'm going to have to rely on paper documents. Hopefully, there _are paper documents lying around here. In this case, the facility's age can actually play in our favour; they should have paper copies of any important documents."_

"Assuming they didn't shred them, or take them along when they left the island," P.J. sounded a note of cynicism from across the room.

"There's that too," Ellis admitted. "This place looks pretty clean, but I'm sure that all this equipment must have cost a fair dime. I'm counting on the possibility that if they left this behind, they might have left something else that could shed some light into this situation." She brought her flashlight in a wide arc. "I have no idea where they would store that kind of thing, though. Maybe we should split up, see if we can find anything that resembles a desk or a filing cabinet."

"No," P.J. said. "We stay together. It's safer that way."

Nobody was willing to argue with experience, so the three would-be explorers fell silent again. Eventually, they decided that there was nothing of worth in the chamber and moved on. They passed through a series of corridors, some displaying pictures of dinosaurs in some kind of nature-fresco that probably looked jovial in the sunlight, but in the darkness seemed to loom with unannounced threat.

After passing what looked like a cafeteria, Ellis caught sight of a smallish door in the west wall. Shining her flashlight onto it, she saw a sign marked "Employees Only".

"Hey, this looks like something."

The door opened easily enough, and they walked into what seemed like a series of small offices. Computer monitors sat deadened on the dark forms of desks. They made their way between the desks, scanning the room with the help of their flashlights. Eventually they happened upon a filing cabinet set in the corner. Ellis walked over to it and gave a tug on the handle. When it didn't budge, she waved for P.J. to approach. He grasped the handle in his hands a pulled. The basic key lock mechanism had degraded to the point where it only took a few hard yanks on the drawer for it to open up.

"Jackpot," Ellis said, peering inside with her flashlight. There were files and papers sticking out here and there. She grabbed the first one and, leaning against the wall, began quickly leafing through the documents contained therein.

As Ellis searched the documentation, Richley kept his flashlight firmly on the door through which they had entered. This darkened building was doing nothing to alleviate his anxiety, and he didn't want to be here any longer than need be. On an island where monsters were real, who knew what might lurk in the shadows?

Richley caught sight of P.J. scanning the rest of the room, apparently as ill at ease as Richley was. They were used to facing unknown and possibly dangerous situations, but not in this kind of environment. Richley's experience was in the field, in jungles, savannahs and steppes. Ellis didn't seem to be bothered, but Richley felt distinctly uncomfortable at simply being inside, because these were settings that were supposed to be friendly, not threatening.

"This isn't good," they heard Ellis say. "I've found some invoices for cargo boat rentals. It looks like InGen was shipping stuff between their islands and the mainland, but they don't say what routes the specific boats had. The problem is, some of these have also been licensed to carry live cargo."

Ellis glanced up.

"Which means that they've been shipping these things to the other islands, and possibly even to the mainland."

Richley repressed a shudder, but the thought didn't concern him as much as he thought it would. Possibly because the only thing of value he really had – his daughter, Alice – was here, on this island, now. And she was in danger, now, even as Ellis rummaged through some old files. Suddenly he really felt like getting out of this building.

"We should head back to the platform before it gets too dark."

"But what about the files? There could be more information in here."

"Take them with you."

"But I–"

"I said we're going," Richley stated sternly.

"Fine. You're the boss." Despondent, Ellis grabbed a batch of the files and slammed the drawer close.

They made their way back up through the darkened corridors and chambers of the aging InGen complex in silence.

**47**

FAILURE

By the time they had wound their way back through the corridors, up the stairs and through the mountain flank, the sun had disappeared beyond the horizon, one last semi-circle of red kissing the ocean waves. Carlson and Soles were staring out at the jungle vista playing itself out before the platform, silent.

"Well?" Richley asked, definitely not liking the air of solemnity that seemed to hang over the technician and cartographer like a shroud.

"It didn't work," Soles finally said, not bothering to turn around to look at them.

"What do you mean, 'it didn't work'?"

"We tried everything, Brent," Carlson said, turning around and waiving the module in his hands. "It _should_ be working, but it isn't."

"What's wrong with it?"

"With this?" He held up the GTRX module. "Absolutely nothing. At least, nothing that I can find. The circuits are fine, the signal seems to be going out and it should have enough power to carry twice as far as where the plane should be."

"But we're not getting anything in return," Soles explained. "Dead air."

"Are you sure that you're pointing it in the right direction?" Ellis asked.

"Positive," Soles said, too downtrodden to take offence at having her skills brought into question. "I've checked and double-checked our respective positions, both with the sun and the stars." She pointed upwards, where the first few frozen glimmers of light could be seen. "Either there's something wrong with the module that Carlson can't figure out–"

"There isn't," Carlson interjected.

"–Or the communications equipment on the plane is broken, or they're not answering for some reason… or the plane isn't there at all."

"Which means our quick airlift out of here is no longer an option," Ellis said dully.

It took a while for Richley to absorb the full implications. It would take another twelve hours just to get back to their temporary camp, and from there it could take days to reach the beach with the plane, depending on the weather – and assuming the plane was still there, that is. Two days wasted when every minute on this damned island could be their last.

"We have to get back to camp," Richley said. "We have to tell them, and get moving again."

"I wouldn't recommend it," P.J. said. "We shouldn't try moving at night. We could get lost, stuck in that ditch, or worse. We should at least wait until dawn before starting up again. Besides, we all need sleep. A weary driver isn't going to do anybody any good."

Richley had to acknowledge the wisdom in the hunter's words. They were all exhausted, both from the physical and emotional stresses that the day had brought.

"On the other hand," P.J. continued, "I think that once we join up with the rest of our party, we'll be able to travel by night if we take shifts. It might cut back on some journey time. We should also leave the shelters and just sleep in the jeeps themselves–"

"I'm sure there will be plenty of time to discuss this tomorrow," Richley said. "We have to figure out what we're going to do now."

"Sleep in the jeep?" Carlson suggested.

"No," P.J. said. "Sitting out there by the base of the rocks… I don't like it, it's too open."

"What's your idea, then?" Soles asked.

"We go in there," P.J. said, pointing to the InGen complex.

"In there?" Carlson repeated, looking uncomfortable at the prospect. Richley couldn't blame him.

"While we were poking around, we found a room that I think is fairly secure. We could bunk out in there for the night."

It wasn't an appealing prospect, but Richley didn't think there was much of a choice. He felt almost crushed by the intense disappointment at having their plan fail right at the end, but he knew he couldn't let set matters cloud his judgement. Adopting his best command voice, he said:

"Alright, people, let's get moving. We can't let this setback stop us."

Glumly, the five team members picked up their backpacks and shouldered them, heading off into the rocky wedge that would led them into the dark, deserted InGen complex.

**48**

EMBRYO

Ellis had not been able to sleep. Although she'd accepted having to call off her search before, she simply couldn't rest knowing that the answers to the mysteries of this island might be just around the corner. More than curiosity: it was her duty.

P.J. had led them back to the room in which she'd found the files. They had bunked down between the rows of desks, using their backpacks as makeshift and rather uncomfortable pillows. Now, Ellis rose – gently, so as not to disturb her sleeping companions – and walked over to the room's single door. 

P.J. had been rather displeased that it opened outwards instead of inwards like most doors, which meant it couldn't be barricaded. Ellis didn't really see how that could be a problem; after all, dinosaurs can't open doors, and anything large enough to smash down a door probably couldn't fit through the opening anyway – not to mention that they'd hear something that big coming through the building a kilometre away.

Once she was back out into the corridor, she switched on her flashlight. She hadn't wanted to turn it on before out of fear of waking the others. Her beam passed over the mural, and then swung past it to the unexplored area beyond.

Ellis began walking down the corridor, nervous but determined not to let herself be deterred. Shortly thereafter, she came upon another door set into the wall. This one had several signs on it, some of them bearing signs she didn't recognize. Still, two of them read: "Authorized Personnel Only" and "Security Level 10." Figuring that this was as likely a place to find important information as any other, Ellis tried the door. It pushed open easily enough. She shone the flashlight inside, but saw nothing of import in her initial sweep.

Stepping inside, Ellis saw that she was in some kind of antechamber. She was facing a window in the wall in front of her. To the right was a row of lockers, while computer equipment lined the walls behind her and to the left. She tried the lockers, but they were either well locked or stuck, and she couldn't open them. Scanning the rest of the room, she saw there was a heavy looking door in the wall with the window. She tried to peer through it with her flashlight, but the reflection prevented her from seeing into the dark room.

She walked up to the door. There seemed to be a touch-tone panel next to it, presumably for entering some kind of security code. The panel was, of course, long dead. There was a handle on the door, and it moved well when Ellis gripped it, so she hoped that the door wasn't locked. Ellis shoved against the door, but to no avail. She was about to give up when she remember P.J.'s complaint about the direction of doors, and tried pulling on the handle instead. With a sonorous click, the heavy door swung open towards her. Stale air rushed out of the next room, and Ellis braced herself as she entered, feeling uncomfortably as if she was walking into a crypt.

The first thing she noticed was that it was cool in the room. Not cold, but the air definitely felt cooler than outside. There were two large structures inside the room, looking oddly like containers of some sort. There was another door in the back of the room.

She bent over to examine the containers. They looked bulky but technologically advanced. Ellis figured that Carlson might be able to recognize them. There seemed to be a small crack in one of them. Running her fingers along it, she could feel the cold coming from it. Placing the flashlight in her mouth, she slipped her fingers into the crack and pulled upwards. The panel on the container lifted in a few sharp jerks.

Peering inside, Ellis could see that there was some kind of tubes at regular intervals affixed to the container's mechanism. The air coming from it was cold, and Ellis realized that it was a cryogenic chamber. While it wasn't cold enough to the touch for whatever was inside to still be frozen, it still retained some of its low temperature, so it was probably one of the last systems of the complex to fail after InGen vacated the premises.

"Insomnia?"

Ellis started and let out a gasp, turning around quickly.

"Sorry," Richley said, "Didn't mean to frighten you."

"You have a funny way of showing it," she replied, somewhat relieved that it was just him.

"I saw you get up; I was wondering what you were doing. We really shouldn't split up, or stray from our bunk room, you know."

"Well, I wasn't falling asleep, so I figured I might as well continue my investigations instead of wasting the night away staring at the ceiling." Ellis paused. "What about you? You couldn't sleep either?"

Richley shrugged. "Too much on my mind."

Ellis relaxed her stance. "Your daughter."

"I worry about everybody on my team… but yes, her especially." Richley sighed, dropping his fist on the other container. "I should have known better, after her mother died, to never bring anybody I loved on any of these damn expeditions. I should have quit the field altogether. But no: I have the wanderlust, and so does Alice. We just kept on going. And now look at where it's gotten us."

"To be fair, Richley, you really had no way of knowing anything remotely like this could ever happened."

"That doesn't matter. An expedition leader is responsible for everything that happens to his team. That includes accidents and any unforeseen circumstances. Knowingly or not, I got them into this mess. I bear the blame."

"InGen and Hammond are to blame, Richley. Not you."

Richley shook his head. "I was the one who brought them here. I was the one who decided to ground the entire team while we came up here on some misbegotten quest with an unreliable piece of technology. For better or for worse, I'm the one who made these decisions."

Richley blew air out his mouth, like a physical side effect of putting the subject out of his mind for now. He turned back to Ellis and asked: "What did you find?"

"This," she said, "appears to be a cryogenic chamber."

"A cryo-what?"

"Cryogenic chamber. It's used for preserving live specimen for extended periods of time. Sort of like suspended animation."

"What's in it?"

"I'm not sure yet. The chamber itself isn't working anymore, so there's nothing to worry about. I wonder if…"

Ellis reached inside the panel she had opened up and wrapped her fingers around one of the narrow tubes. She gave it a yank and it came out. Richley shone his flashlight onto it.

"There's something written here… 'Triceratops'."

Ellis reached into the panel and withdrew three more tubes, reading the names as she picked them up.

"Parasaurolophus. Spinosaurus. Velociraptor."

She glanced up at Richley, who, unfamiliar with the nomenclature, simply shrugged. "I've never heard of them. You'd have to ask Benny." Richley picked up one of the tubes, peering inside. "What's in this, anyway?"

"Well, InGen was a company that dealt with cloning, so… I suppose it must be blood or some other organic sample for them to get DNA samples from."

"Okay – but where did they get these samples from in the first place?"

"That, I have no idea," Ellis admitted. "But I am worried about these things. These could be transported anywhere given the proper carrying equipment. With one of these, any cloning facility around the world could reproduce the dinosaurs on this island. And furthermore–"

Ellis broke off as the popping sounds of gunfire echoed off in the distance. A horrid, high-pitched squeal followed, and a man – Carlson – screamed. Cursing themselves for having left their pistols in their backpacks, Richley and Ellis broke for the door, dreading what lay beyond but knowing they had little other choice then to try and help their companions.


	9. Sections 49 to 51 - Devils in the Dark

Disclaimer: John Hammond, InGen, Jurassic Park, Isla Nebular and Isla Sorna are all things that I have unconscionably stolen from Michael Crichton's novels Jurassic Park and The Lost World, as well as the movies of the same name. I have drawn on both forms of media (the books and the movies) for this story. It does not follow one or the other specifically… it is implied that John Hammond is still alive in this story, but I use dinosaur elements from the books… and a few that were in neither. None of the characters from Jurassic Park or Lost World, in either variation, appear in this story. Instead, I have chosen to plunk down a new set of characters on the island. The events described take place sometime between the Jurassic Park Incident and the San Diego Incident. Well, I guess that's all there is to say, except… enjoy the story.

Los Cinquo Muertes Chapter 1: Survey

**In this Instalment:**

49. The Devils in the Dark

50. Despondency

51. Perimeter Alarm

**49**

THE DEVILS IN THE DARK

P.J. woke from his light slumber, instantly alert. He didn't know why he had awakened, but he knew it was best to trust his instincts, assume there was a problem and be proven wrong rather than ignoring them and possibly ending up dead. While he'd freely admit to never having faced situations as dangerous as these, he'd had his share of close encounters in Africa and South America, and eventually one learned to develop a sort of sixth sense about danger.

P.J. rolled onto his back, scanning the darkness of the room for anything amiss. He listened intently to the dull sounds in the room – he even sniffed the air, looking for any unidentifiable odours. He didn't detect anything at first, but just as he was about to rise from his horizontal position on floor, he heard what sounded like a light jangling. Focusing on the sound, he realized that it was the door handle.

Glancing to his left, he saw that Ellis' bunk was empty. He shook his head, fully intent on dressing her down for having left the rest of the group, and without saying a thing about it to boot. He was halfway raised from his makeshift bed behind a desk when he heard the door being pulled open, accompanied by a low grunt.

Unless Ellis had spontaneously developed the worst throat cold in human history, there was no way she could have made that noise. He heard the door swing open again, this time accompanied by a snort. Like the grunt before it, it had an unmistakably bestial quality about it.

P.J. took a quick glance around and spotted Soles sleeping a row to his right. Being careful not to make any noise, he crawled on his elbows over to her sleeping form. As he did so, he listened for any new sounds from the door. He wasn't disappointed.

Whatever it was walked into the room and began sniffing the air. As it walked, he could hear an intermittent clicking sound, like stone striking metal. Or bone striking floor. Hidden behind the desks, P.J. couldn't get a good look at what it was without risking showing his head.

He reached Soles and quickly put one hand behind her head and another over her mouth. She let out a muffled gasp, which, despite being stifled by P.J.'s hand, still sounded like a thunderclap in the enclosed room. P.J. leaned over Soles, finding her eyes with his, and peered into them intently, trying to convey his message through facial gestures alone. Soles must have caught on to what he was saying, because she nodded her head.

P.J. removed his hands from her mouth and turned back onto his side to get a good view of the room. After Soles' aborted gasp, he hadn't heard anything, and it worried him.

Suddenly, a sliver of a darker form presented itself above them, peering over the desk. P.J. could barely see any of it, but it was definitely a snout. It moved in a left to right arc, sniffing the air, searching for any traces of the sound it had heard. P.J. silently drew his pistol out of his holster, knowing it was only a matter of time before it detected the presence of the two humans below.

Whether from a draft or because it has been slipping all along, the door to the room slid shut the entire way, clicking loudly as the tumblers fell back into place. Whatever it was above them disappeared, undoubtedly turning away to face this new sound.

But the sound of the closing door had another effect: it stirred Carlson from his slumber.

"Wha… what was that?" his voice rang through the room.

Again P.J. heard that bony clicking sound, this time in rapid succession, and got the impression of a running animal.

"Carlson, look out!" P.J. screamed as he launched himself above the desk, pistol blazing, hoping that the technician was still lying on the floor. The muzzle flashed brightly in the darkness, briefly illuminating the dead room, as the bullets sough out their goal. Carlson, having become aware of a shadow rushing at him in the darkness, began to scream.

One of the bullets must have found it's mark in the darkness because the creature let out a high-pitched squeal as it seemed to slam into one of the desks, causing it to tip over and the computer monitor to crash to the floor.

"Move," P.J. said, pushing Soles towards the door. "Come on, Carlson!"

The creature was struggling on the floor, trying to regain its footing, hissing and biting at the air. Carlson rose awkwardly, trying to get around another one of the desks. Whatever it was thrashing on the floor, it was blocking his path to the door.

Soles leapfrogged over a desk, landing in the same row as the beast. Moving quickly, she ran into the door, barrelling it open with her body and spilling out into the corridor beyond.

"This way!" P.J. cried out, motioning for the technician to join him in the desks to the left. Carlson gave the form on the floor one last look, and then moved along the back of the room to reach another row. As he was reaching the hunter's height, the dinosaur stood again. It seemed to side-step, moving closer towards the door as if it somehow understood that they would be trying to escape and wanted to block them.

The creature looked at them for a few seconds, and they looked back. P.J. could see that it was bipedal, holding its arms folded below its chest. It looked sleek, aerodynamic. Its head was elongated and reptilian, and P.J. did not doubt for a second that this was a predator and thus probably sported an impressive array of teeth.

The dinosaur raised its head to the ceiling and started making a series of short, bark-like noises. They echoed dreadfully in the room and the corridor outside.

"What's it doing?" Carlson asked anxiously.

P.J. didn't know, but he didn't have to reply. Carlson's question seemed to draw the beast back to the present, alone in a room with two trapped humans. P.J. spotted it cocking its head and shifting its weight to one side, and raised his pistol towards it. The creature didn't recognize the threat, and leapt towards them anyway.

P.J. fired several times as the dark form of the dinosaur rushed towards them. He heard the bullets strike flesh, and the creature let out a painful wail as its jump became a fall. Still, its momentum was considerable, and it kept coming towards the two team members.

"Duck!" P.J. said, pushing down on Carlson's shoulder. The dinosaur crashed into the desk they were hiding behind, sliding across it, knocking the computer monitor onto them. This was shortly followed by the body of the beast itself. P.J. felt something sharp cut across his check, welling blood. The creature slammed into the desk behind them, causing it to tip over. The moment it finished it's sprawl onto the desk, P.J. pushed Carlson up and away. He couldn't tell whether it was dead, or alive and simply injured, but there was no need to take a chance.

They both ran out of the room and into the corridor, where Soles had been waiting off to the side, ready to sprint away at a moment's notice. Two bobbing lights appeared around the bend in the corridor, and Richley and Ellis came running up, worried and out of breath.

"What the hell is happening? What was that noise?" Richley enquired.

"We're going back to the jeep, that's what's happening," P.J. answered.

Suddenly they heard the same bark-like sounds echoing down the corridor. Although they couldn't tell for sure, there seemed to be several pairs of them.

"Let's get out of here," Richley nodded.

At once, the five expedition members began running down the corridor, heading towards the rotunda, the platform and the jeep beyond. Only Ellis and Richley had their flashlights, which they took from their packs before their midnight stroll. Other than those, and P.J.'s handgun, all the equipment they had brought with them had been left behind with their backpacks in the makeshift bunkroom.

The sounds of the hunting dinosaurs were their constant companions, chasing them as they ran. As they reached the large, round room, the sounds stopped being echoes and began to sound as if they were right behind them. Sparing a glance backwards, they could see nothing yet but knew that their pursuit couldn't be all that far away.

"Hurry up, Carlson!"

The panting technician climbed the stairs as fast as he could, but was starting to lag behind. As he left the rotunda for the grillage leading to the platform, he glanced over his shoulder and saw another one of those creatures skidding to a halt amongst the computer terminals.

The grillage rang with the sound of their feet pounding on the metal. The dark flanks of the mountain seem to tip and skew as they ran, their angle, determined by the positioning of their feet, changing constantly. It looked almost as if it was going to collapse on them, as if the cliff was some kind of beastly maw about to snap it's jaws shut on them.

"The platform! Jump!" P.J., in the lead, cried out. He didn't think there would be enough time to climb down with any semblance of control. As he saw it coming up on him, he prepared himself to jump, then leaped into the air over the platform's railing. Those running behind him saw the person in front jump, and did the same.

Though lasting mere seconds, the fall downwards from the raised platform seemed to take forever as they slid through empty air. They saw the mountainside rise up to meet them. Then came the jarring shock of touching ground again, a slamming sensation that sent vibrations to all parts of their body. Not a single one managed to stay standing or crouching – the distance, speed and angle of the fall had been too great – and they rolled as they hit the ground, unable to control their descent down the mountainside. Rock and stone bit into their clothes, slashed their skin.

After sliding they would finally managed to slow their descend, or grab onto a rock, and stand up again to continue their flight down the mountainside, battered and bruised, bleeding from minute cuts.

Carlson was the last to leap, and the arc of his fall fell shorter than all the others. He struck the ground on his left side, and began sliding along the mountainside; head downwards, stirring loose stone and pebbles as he went. His slide ended at an outcropping, a piece of rock jutting wickedly from the side of the slope. He hit his head on it, glanced off, and then turned a hundred and eighty degrees as he finally slid to a halt, facing upwards towards the platform. A thin film of blood covered his right eye, above which a nasty gash could be seen.

The remaining team members paused in their flight and began turning around to help their fallen comrade when the hooting call of one of the dinosaurs rang out once again among the cliffs. In the pale moonlight, they could see one of the creatures perched atop the platform looking down.

Carlson let out a sound that was half moan, half scream, and tried to scramble backwards on his hands, dizzy from his wounds. The dinosaur suddenly leaped into the air above the platform railing, falling with dreadful accuracy onto the soft body of the technician. There was a wordless cry of pain and fear, suddenly cut off.

"Carlson!" Richley cried out, starting towards his fallen team member. P.J. placed a restraining hand on his shoulder, and pointed upwards.

"No. There's nothing we can do. We have to go; more are coming."

Indeed an additional pair of dinosaur had appeared upon the platform, looking reading to jump down themselves. The four humans turned around and started racing back towards the jeep at the bottom of mountainside, navigating the slope with an innate skill born of desperation.

Behind them, as their partner snacked on what used to be their friend, the two dinosaurs jumped over the railing and off the platform. One landed crookedly and fell, getting caught in a small landside of rocks and pebbles. The other was more sure-footed, and quickly regained its balance. It started down the cliff after its fleeing prey.

The slope slowed them down, but it also delayed the dinosaur. When they finally reached the flatter part at the base of the foothills, and the jeep was mere meters away, Ellis glanced over her shoulder and saw that the dinosaur would soon be upon them.

They leaped into the jeep, Richley taking the driver's seat and P.J. taking shotgun – appropriately enough, since he had the only weapon. As soon as he was in the jeep, P.J. began firing shots off at the onrushing creature, but in the darkness missed every time, merely glancing pieces of stone off the mountainside.

Richley gunned the engine hard. It sank momentarily, along with the heart of all those in the jeep, but suddenly roared back to life with a squeal. They were facing the foothills, and the jeep lurched towards the rocky slope. The dinosaur was almost ready to pounce when Richley seized the wheel and turned it sharply to the left, causing the entire jeep to turn in a semi-circle. The eager dinosaur was hit by the swinging side of the vehicle, and thrown back onto the rocks.

The back wheels of the jeep screeched against the stone as Richley pumped the gas pedal as much as he dared. Soon they had left the foothills behind them, and were driving through the scrublands between the mountain and the forest, going fast enough so that any of those creatures that had a thought of pursuing them would be left in the dust.

**50**

DESPONDENCY

At this latitude, close to the equator, the length of days didn't shift much with the seasons – or whatever passed as seasons in a place where the annual shift in temperatures was no more than a few degrees centigrade. Come rain or shine, dawn peeks on the horizon at about the same time every day.

The members of the survey team, those left behind by Richley and his group, awakened early after a poor night of sleep to a morose grey covering of clouds, tinted yellow here and there by the hidden sun. They rose without enthusiasm, despite the fact that this was the day when, as promised, the helicopters would come and deliver them from their nightmare. It seemed like a far away prospect to them, the hours between now and then impossibly long and laden with dread.

There was nothing to do that would help, which only aggravated the situation. A lot of people were starting to go stir crazy, just sitting in their crudely fashioned camp, waiting for the cavalry to airlift them out of the jungle, or for some unexpected guests to drop in for lunch – whichever came first. And there wasn't a damn thing any one of them could do to help the situation. 

That was the worst of all. For people who had joined up with survey teams like these, exploration – in essence, the combination of movement and discovery – was not a career, but an imperative. To be grounded in such a fashion was getting on everybody nerves, and tempers were running high. Barely an hour after they had awoken, two of the workhorses, Peter and Calvin, had gotten into a fight over some trivial matter that, after they had been broken up, neither of them could remember.

Alice sat despondently against a tree, not concerning herself with the fact that it was still wet from yesterday's rainfall and that the dampness was seeping through her sweater. At this point, most of her clothes were wet anyway. The sheer oppressive humidity that had accompanied the previous day's rainfall had not dissipated in the least – indeed, Alice expected it to start raining again at any moment. The trailers, while weather resistant, were not atmosphere-controlled, and everything they had packed for this trip had acquired a faint lustre of dew and that pervasive feeling of dampness.

The music in her ears suddenly turned into an indiscriminate snarl and then stopped altogether. With a look of disgust on her face, Alice removed the Walkman from her ears and cast it aside. The batteries were dead, and she didn't want to use any of the spares in case they were needed later on.

She rose from the tree, not bothering to pick up the now-useless Walkman, and cast a look around at the camp. A lazy sort of languish had fallen over their group, as if giving into their forced inactivity, and soldier and surveyor alike were lounging against crates, tents or trailers. Despite their apparently relaxed pose, none of them looked especially comfortable – not in this climate, and certainly not under the present circumstances. Folker seemed to be the only one with any real energy left to him, still examining those orange-like fruits they had found.

Alice glanced around their motley crew for Benny, but couldn't spot the biologist. She doubted that anybody would be wandering away from the camp despite his or her restlessness – they were all aware of the dangers that surrounded them, even if they preferred not to dwell on it. Alice checked the trailers, and sure enough, there he was, sitting in front of a computer monitor.

"Damn thing!" Benny exclaimed, sitting the side of the monitor with his palm.

"What's wrong?"

Benny turned around to look at Alice, then pointed back towards the computer. 

"It's the humidity. Somehow, it got inside the casing, and now the screen keeps jumping. See?"

Indeed, the images on the screen seem to distort for a moment, replaced by a garble of oddly coloured shapes. When it returned to normal, she saw that it was an entry in their computerized encyclopaedia. Benny was apparently still reading up on the dinosaurs, familiarizing himself with the various species. The current entry showed a limber looking biped.

"Velociraptor," she read off the screen caption.

"Yeah," Benny said, "A real nasty bugger. The guys who research these things think that this one was pretty intelligent – for a dinosaur."

"Well, we have nothing to worry about." Alice pointed to the screen. "Says here that they lived in Mongolia."

"Oh, and all the species that we've seen here are native to this island, I suppose?" Benny said sharply.

"Jeez, I don't know," Alice said, backing off. "There's no need to be snappy about it."

Benny sighed. "You're right; I'm sorry. This place is really starting to get to me." He turned back towards the computer screen. "What I meant was: from the species that we've seen up to now, the isn't any clear geographical distribution. Most seem to be North American, but there's also some from Europe. Besides, the further back in time you go, the less the continents will resemble the formations we have today. Continental drift, you know? At many points, they were linked together, allowing species to migrate to all parts of the world. Some species have been found in North America and also South Africa, so…"

Benny shook his head. "It's just another indication that something artificial – something human – was at work in populating this island full of dinosaurs."

They remained this way, staring at the computer screen in silence, Benny scanning the database and Alice reading over his shoulder, until they heard activity coming from outside the trailer. Glancing out the window, they could see people running. Exchanging worried glances, Benny and Alice made for the door.

**51**

PERIMETER ALARM

Folker studied the moist computer printout, absentmindedly rolling a piece of fruit down on length of arm, flipping it over to his other arm once it reached the crux of his elbow and starting over – an old habit he'd picked up from playing tennis. He'd read this particular piece before – several times, actually, since there was little else to do. The data on the paper hadn't changed, of course, but it was better than sitting idly by. 

He was sitting crossed-legged in the dirt, unmindful of the still fresh mud. Stains on his pants were really the least of his worries at this point. There was a rumble of thunder overhead, and Folker glanced up at the sky. The cloud cover stretched from horizon to horizon, it's dark shapes swollen with the promise of even more rain. Folker hoped that it would wait at least until the end of the day before coming down: hopefully, by that time, the helicopters would have come and gone. One of their trailers had sunk into the mud almost up to it's hind wheels, and, since they weren't going anywhere, the survey crew hadn't bothered to dig it back out. Folker doubted a helicopter would have similar problems, but he figured that clement weather was always a bonus in search and rescue.

That was what this job had turned into, in effect, and they were the ones needing rescue. Folker hoped that Richley and his team had managed to get that message out to the plane, because otherwise…

As if to punctuate his unspoken thought, Folker heard a jangling sound coming from somewhere behind him, on the opposite side of the encampment. He'd heard this sound before: it was their hastily set up perimeter of instruments and cooking supply striking each other as the ropes responded to some outside movement.

Folker instantly brought himself to his feet, glancing around him quickly. The last time he heard that sound, he'd nearly been crushed by a falling trailer, and didn't really care for a repeat performance. Having assured himself there was no immediate danger, Folker joined his teammates in jogging towards the source of the sound. Consciously, he knew that none of them should be heading _towards_ a potential perimeter breach, but the pervasive _ennui_ that had fallen over their makeshift camp made any distraction the automatic centre of attention.

A small throng of people had already gathered by the time that Folker got there. At first, there didn't seem to be anything remarkable happening – just a bunch of people standing mutely in the semi-circle. Then Folker spotted Corporal Meiller and his two remaining soldiers, their weapons drawn, making slow surveys of the area with the tips of their rifles.

Folker spotted Benny arriving with Alice in tow out of the corner of his eye. The biologist craned his neck above the others, trying to see what all the commotion was about. Folker had spent enough time with Benjamin Dougal to know that the eager look on his face meant that he was dying to ask something. But Benny refrained himself, not daring to break the baited silence that had fallen over the group as they waited, as if trying not to breathe too loudly lest the sound disrupt the soldiers' concentration.

Finally, Meiller scowled and brought down his weapon, his soldiers following suit. There was a whoosh of air as the team collectively released their breath. The tense atmosphere had been broken, and Benny now felt free to enquire:

"Did you get a good look at it? What did it look like?"

Meiller glanced up and shook his head. "I didn't see anything. Whatever tripped over the perimeter, it was gone before we got here."

Benny nodded sagely. "The sound made by the perimeter probably surprised it and scared it off. Most animals don't like surprises of this sort. Anything new is potentially dangerous."

"Yeah, well," Alice said, rubbing her shoulders, "It works both ways. I think I've had enough surprises to last me a lifetime."

As if that was their cue, the gathered surveyors started dispersing, alone or in small groups, heading back towards the center of the trailers and the overhanging tarp. Even Meiller, uttering a meaningless grunt, walked off, although Folker noted that the army man was walking not towards the camp but along the side of the string fence.

Finally, Folker was left standing alone by the perimeter. He figured that he might as well return to the camp and get back to doing – well, nothing, really… but it would still be better than simply hanging out around here.

As he turned to leave, something caught his eye. Folker did a double take, senses on alert, staring back into the jungle. But there was nothing. The botanist shook his head and began walking back to the camp. The stress of their dangerous position was starting to get to him. For a moment, he thought he'd seen a pair of eyes, at human height but set too much apart, staring back at him from the recesses of the jungle.


	10. Sections 52 to 54 - Disaster

Marketing Services Normal Raymond Asselin 3 1586 2001-11-01T18:55:00Z 2001-11-01T18:57:00Z 7 4168 23759 Bow Plastics Ltd 94208 197 47 29177 9.2720 0 0 

Disclaimer: John Hammond, InGen, Jurassic Park, Isla Nebular and Isla Sorna are all things that I have unconscionably stolen from Michael Crichton's novels Jurassic Park and The Lost World, as well as the movies of the same name. I have drawn on both forms of media (the books and the movies) for this story. It does not follow one or the other specifically… it is implied that John Hammond is still alive in this story, but I use dinosaur elements from the books… and a few that were in neither. None of the characters from Jurassic Park or Lost World, in either variation, appear in this story. Instead, I have chosen to plunk down a new set of characters on the island. Well, I guess that's all there is to say, except… enjoy the story.

Los Cinquo Muertes Chapter 1: Survey 

**In this instalment:**

52. Tricked!

53. Disaster

54. Sitting in a Tree

**52**

TRICKED!

    Barely two hours later, Meiller was still patrolling the edge of the perimeter. He knew that Benny was probably right – that whatever it was that had gotten caught by their hastily assembled perimeter had taken fright at the sound of the clanging instruments and ran off back into the jungle. But Meiller's training was too ingrained to allow for someone – or rather, something – to breach his perimeter and go unidentified, if not unmolested.

    Besides, it gave him something to do. 

    He understood that it was for the best that his men and him stayed with he bulk of the team to protect them should anything untoward occur. The hunter, P.J., had experience in dealing with animals that surpassed Meiller's, and was used to providing security for small, mobile groups. But having to remain inactive, having to depend on somebody else for their salvation… the concept itched Meiller's mind. It went against both his personality and his training.

    Meiller kept on walking, following the string fence, and closing in on the segment where the alarm had been raised earlier. He had gone around the circumference of their encampment several times, and although he knew that his clockwork pacing – some would say stalking – was starting to unnerve the surveyors, he saw no reason to stop now. As far as he was concerned, he'd be perfectly happy to just keep on walking around until the helicopters got here; this afternoon, if Richley's mission was successful.

    Meiller then noticed that several instruments were lying on the jungle floor. Puzzled, he knelt down near a pot and a barometer. The rope was still there; tied around any convenient outcropping, linking the instruments to each other and to the stakes they had planted into the ground at regular intervals. Meiller glanced towards the nearest stake, and saw that the string was still tied around it. He got up and walked over to the next stake in the line, but that one also had the limp rope tied around it.

    Which meant that the rope had been severed somewhere in the middle along this junction. He picked up the rope in his hands and started playing along it, letting it slide across his palm and he slowly paced the interval between the stakes. About two-thirds of the way through, he found the place were the rope had been cut, the stands on the end frayed.

    No, not cut. _Gnawed. Meiller was certain of it. Even a person who'd never used a knife in their life wouldn't have left fraying marks so far away from the actual cut – and on both the top and the bottom. Something had chewed through the rope. Although there was no way to be certain, Meiller had a strong gut feeling that whatever that something was, it was also the creature that had set off the alarm earlier. It was just too much of a coincidence to believe that these two events – occurring at the exact same spot in the perimeter – were unrelated. _

    He wasn't sure just how smart these animals were, but if they wanted to get into the camp without raising the alarm, cutting the rope was exactly the thing to do. It wasn't a very comfortable thought.

    Meiller quickly glanced over his shoulder, taking in every detail of the encampment behind him in a second as he'd been trained to do. There wasn't anybody around, dinosaur or human. Presumably his teammates were on the other side of the camp, under the tarp, a spot that had become something of a communal center since they'd put it up yesterday to block out the rain. This was good: he wouldn't have to worry about any team members accidentally getting into his line of fire, should things come to that.

    As quietly as he could, Meiller removed his rifle from his back and brought it to bear, instinctively checking to see if his clip was full (it was) even though he hadn't used the thing since they'd been attacked by the Rex three days earlier. Slowly he advanced into the gap, gingerly stepping over the fallen instruments. Scanning all sides, he walked into the jungle. He'd do a quick search of the surrounding area, making sure that there weren't any immediate threats in the vicinity, before returning to the encampment and alerting the others.

    A few steps into the jungle, Meiller stopped, estimating that this was far enough. He didn't want to go off into the jungle, after all, not alone, and not before telling the others about the hole in the perimeter. Keeping his rifle steady, Meiller started a slow, sweeping arc of his surroundings.

    He froze. There, right in front of him, was a dinosaur. The jungle foliage blocked most of its body from view, but Meiller could see its head, standing at about the same height as a human. Typically reptilian, with a tapering snout, its forward-facing eyes seemed to be staring right at Meiller. The dinosaur let its jaw drop open slightly, revealing a twin set of wickedly sharp teeth.

    Slowly, as to not startle the creature, Meiller thumbed the release on his rifle and took a bead on the beast's head. The dinosaur didn't react at all, but kept staring at Meiller, looking as if it were grinning.

    Suddenly, Meiller heard movement to his left and saw, out of the corner of his eye, the ferns and plant shift as something approached rapidly. Before he had the chance to fully turn and meet this new menace, another dinosaur popped out of the jungle not even a meter away from him.

    "What in blazes?"

    Meiller swung his rifle around, firing as he went, hoping to hit the animal despite its proximity. Without warning, a massive force slammed into his side, knocking him to the ground and causing a surge of pain to radiate from the side of his head were the forgotten first dinosaur had slashed at with its teeth. Before he could try and scramble back to his feet or at least out of the way, the dinosaur arched its head back and brought it down on the injured side of his temple with a resounding cracking sound. He felt something break and give in, then searing pain, then a spreading feeling of wetness, and then nothing.

**53**

DISASTER

    The sound of Meiller's weapon discharging in vain was, to the members of the survey team, the first indication that something was wrong. Although apprehensive after the first perimeter breach that morning, the drudgery of their forced inactivity had quickly dulled their newfound alertness. By this time, everyone had returned to whatever he or she had been doing – or rather, not doing – all morning long. 

    Benny was still going through their electronic encyclopedia in a trailer, with Alice reading over his shoulders. Nothing she was reading was making her feel any better about their situation, but she was riveted to the flickering scene nonetheless, like a passerby who cranes his neck to get a better view of a car wreck on the side of the road. Only this team, her father's team was the wreck.

    Their three remaining trailers had been set up in a triangular fashion, with the tarp against the rain set up using the foldable shelters in the center of that triangle. Benny and Alice were in one; Folker was leaning against another, reading over the data on their newfound fruit source for the umpteenth time. Next to him, one of Meiller's soldiers was leaning against the trailer's siding, using his rifle to prop himself up.

    The other soldier was in a similar position, accosted against the third trailer, the one that faced – and therefore hid – the portion of their camp's perimeter that had been disturbed that morning. The other four team members – Peter, Stanley, Calvin and John, the "generalists" – were resting on or against crates under the tarp, exchanging light conversation.

    When the sound of a rifle firing echoed loudly through the jungle canopy and into their little encampment, everybody looked up, instantly alert, trying to find the source of the sound. It only lasted a second, and was cut off abruptly.

    Benny and Alice rose from their spot at the computer terminal and rushed over to the window on the right side of the trailer. From their angle they could see the rest of the camp, and part of the jungle, but not the critical part that was blocked from view by the third trailer. All they could see was the other team members glancing at each other in confusion and apprehension, puzzled as to the source and meaning of the gunfire.

    Those who had been longing or sitting stood up, but made no move in one direction or another. All their senses had gone into full alert mode, scanning the area surrounding them, their bodies refusing to move until their minds could comprehend the source of the danger they were all feeling and react accordingly. The chambered nature of the jungle canopy had made identifying the direction from which the sound came a difficult task.

    Finally, the lone soldier who had been leaning against the third trailer began to walk along the trailer's side, keeping his rifle up and ready. He had been the closest to the sound and thought – though he wasn't sure – that it had come from somewhere behind the trailer. Tentatively, he walked around the corner of the trailer and glanced towards the jungle. Before his eyes had time to register the fast-moving shape heading in his direction, it was upon him, knocking him backwards onto the ground and tearing at the flesh on his face, cutting off his abortive scream as it ripped the meat off his jaw.

    In the camp, it was like a floodgate had opened up: the previously anxious immobility gave way to a wave of motion as more dinosaurs came pouring around the side of the third trailer and the humans turned to flee across open ground towards the possible refuge of the jungle. Two of the creatures sprinted into the crates under the tarp and, leaping over the wooden obstacles, brought down Stanley and John.

    Peter barely had time to cover two meters of ground before another dinosaur literally cut him off, darting perpendicularly across his path, it's head snaking out and seizing his throat, dropping him to the ground with a strangulated cry. Calvin actually made it all the way to the edge of the jungle, but his mind was filled with senseless terror and little else, so he completely forgot about their perimeter. He tripped over the low-lying string, causing the instruments to swing wildly and hit each other in a cacophony of sound as he sprawled onto the muddy ground. He spun himself around just it time to see a gaping map and twin sets of serrated teeth descending towards him.

    At the same time, Folker had started running alongside the second trailer as soon as he saw the dinosaurs come pouring into the camp. He'd reached the corner and had the nearby jungle in sight when he felt a massive weight slam into his side, sending him to the floor. Well-honed and muscular from years of outdoor activities, Folker rolled onto his side and kicked, connecting with something and managing to push it off somewhat. The dinosaur had other plans, however, and brought one of its hind legs around in an arc, the wicked claw on it's outer tow slicing through his shirt and along his side, cutting deep into his flesh.

    Folker heard a large popping sound and suddenly the predator standing above him flinched back, emitting a painful cry. Folker saw parts of the creature's body explode outwards, it's blood splashing onto him. As it collapsed next to him, Folker saw the soldier who'd been resting near him, his rifle still pointed at the fallen beast, the tip smoking.

    Folker started to get to his feet, his side screaming in agony. He was about to thank the soldier who had, in effect, just saved his life, but instead he cried: "Look out!"

    Before the soldier could turn around, another one of the beasts slammed into him from behind. The soldier's legs gave out under the dinosaur's weight, his spine bending at an awkward angle as his head hit the side of the trailer. It's prey at it's mercy, the dinosaur brought it's head down and began tearing at the flesh at the back of the soldier's now-misshapen neck, leaving little illusion as to the soldier's status.

    Hoping that the cadaver would keep the beast occupied, Folker resumed his flight towards the jungle, keeping an arm pressed against his wound. Pain radiated from it, somehow making the world around him sharper and more precise. He either saw or remembered their perimeter (afterwards, he couldn't recall which), and leaped over the string "fence". Something in his side shifted when he landed, sending out another wave of pain, but Folker did his best to ignore it as he ran into the jungle.

    In the chaos of the attack, Alice and Benny, at the windows of the trailer, witnessed the savage ferocity as their teammates were brought down. Both of them recognized the animals that had besieged them from the computer encyclopedia: Velociraptors, significantly larger than the one that had been illustrated on the screen. Alice had screamed and backed away from the window when she saw Stanley and John fall to the dinosaurs' powerful limbs and wicked jaws.

    The dinosaurs – those that weren't busy tearing asunder their newfound meals – moved in a blur of motion, fanning out like wildfire. Benny saw one of the running figures heading their way moment before it's snout hit the window in the right flank of the trailer. Benny, shocked, recoiled violently, lost his balance and tumbled to the floor. Alice screamed again and pressed herself against the opposite side of the vehicle as the dinosaur snapped its jaws against the glass, trying in vain to chew through it.

    "The window!" Benny cried out, pointing at the window in the opposite side of the trailer, just behind Alice, as he quickly got back to his feet. Seeing understanding spread across the young woman's face, Benny glanced around the trailer to see if there was anything that could be of use. In doing so, his eyes fell not on a tool or instrument, but on something even more pressing.

    The door. The trailer's door had not been closed (there'd been no reason to) and Benny could see a sliver of outside light teasing through the opening. It was no great deductive feat to realize how deadly this could be in their current circumstances.

    Benny quickly crossed the distance in the small trailer separating him from the door and, not bothering to waste precious time in slowing down, slammed his body against it. The creatures outside detected either the sound or the slight motion of the closing door, because suddenly Benny felt another force at the door, pushing against him. Unprepared for the assault, the door slipped open a notch. Benny redoubled his efforts and got it to close again, this time clicking the lock-bolt into place. When their friend outside the trailer took another run at the door, it shuddered but held.

    For now, anyway. The door and locking mechanism had never been designed with ramming dinosaurs in mind, and Benny entertained no illusions about being able to stay inside the trailer for very long. Which was why, at the same time, Alice had spun herself around and turned to face the window in the left side of the trailer. She pulled it open and, after a moment's hesitation, stuck her head through.

    She looked on both sides very quickly, intent on pulling her vulnerable head back into the trailer at the slightest sign of trouble. Fortunately, the area appeared devoid of animal life, the only movement coming from the ferns in the wind. If it wasn't for the sound of the soldier's rifle firing, one couldn't have guessed looking out this side of the trailer that something had gone terribly wrong.

    Using a crate that had never been unloaded as a boost, Alice pushed herself through the window. Although she was slim and fit through easily enough, there was nothing graceful in her jerking motions as she tried to slide her body across the thin threshold to the outside world. Finally, gravity being what it is, the weight of her upper body was sufficient to cause her to lean forward enough so that her feet left the crate, and the rest of her came sliding out. She was thankful that the previous day's rain had made the ground soft and muddy, because it made her landing easier and muffled the sound.

    She quickly picked herself off the ground, looking around wildly. She turned back towards the window where Benny, having assured himself a few moments of respite by bolting the door, had just slipped his head through.

    "Don't wait for me," he whispered harshly, hauling himself up. "Go, to the jungle."

    Benny, who wasn't as thin as the female teenager, had a harder time getting his body through the window. He had to struggle to get his shoulders through the opening, twisting his body awkwardly. At least, he reflected, the noise of the dinosaur trying to break down the door to the trailer was covering the noise of his attempts at egress.

    He finally managed to pull his shoulders through the window and began to slide the rest of his body outwards, pushing against the side of the trailer with his hands for leverage. Looking up, he saw that Alice had reached the edge of the jungle and stopped just inside, looking anxiously at him. He felt like screaming at her to keep running, but was afraid the noise might draw unwanted attention. At least her continued presence meant that there were still alone on this side of the trailer – in his convoluted position, he couldn't see his surroundings very well.

    He fell out awkwardly, flipping forwards and landing on his back. He hesitated a moment before getting up, listening intently. It took him a few seconds to realize he couldn't hear the dinosaur trying to break down the door anymore. Which meant one of two things, neither of them good. Either it had given up on the door, in which case it might be prowling as he lied there in the mud, or…

    With a squeal that sounded like a cutting iron on a metal plate, the velociraptor's reptilian face darted out of the window above Benny, gnashing its jaws uselessly. Benny backed away on his hands and feet, slipping in the mud. Finally judging that he was far enough from the 'raptor, Benny rose to his feet and started towards Alice.

    "Run!" he screamed at her, unmindful of the noise now. If that dinosaur's high-pitched whine hadn't drawn the attention of it's friends, nothing would. Alice turned around and took off, Benny following suit shortly thereafter. The raptor in the trailer rose it's head upwards and began emitted a set of guttural barks. Looking back, Benny saw a pair of raptor coming around the bend of the trailer and dart into the jungle after the fleeing humans.

    Blood pumped loudly in his ears as he ran with all the will he could muster, weaving his way through the trees and jumping over rocks or gullies when he saw them. He tried to keep Alice in front of him at all times, following her plowed path through the jungle foliage. Behind, he knew that those creatures were still pursuing. What he'd seen of them, and read off the encyclopedia, suggested that these things were fast runners. It was only a matter of time – and not much time, at that – before he was overtaken.

    Barely thirty seconds into the race, and he was having difficulties breathing. Sweat beaded off his ebony forehead. His legs were aching, and he was afraid that they might cramp up. It wasn't fair; the human body wasn't designed with these predators in mind.

    The thought sparked off an idea, even as he narrowly avoided tripping into a stream. There were others fast predators, lions and cheetahs and such. And before humans had developed even the most rudimentary forms of technology…

    "The trees!" he cried out. He spotted Alice, a running blur, zigzagging her way through the jungle. "Alice!" She turned to look at him. "The trees! Get in the trees!"

    Alice spun back forwards, not slowing down even for a second, and cast her eyes towards the branches. She spotted one favorable-looking low-hanging branch up ahead, and by the time that she identified it as such she was almost under it. She jumped up, grabbing the branch with her hands. The momentum of her flight caused her to swing upwards, and Alice instinctively coiled her body inwards, wrapping herself around the branch. It wasn't hard from there to right herself and stand up, looking for a higher perch. There was another branch close by, and she grabbed it and pulled herself up, hopefully out of the dinosaur's reach.

    Benny saw Alice jump up and figured that he'd better try that branch as well – it was better for them to stick together, and he couldn't be certain to find another favorable tree fast enough. He leapt as he reached the branch's height, but due to his greater weight wasn't able to get enough momentum to swing himself upwards like Alice had. Struggling with a force born of desperation, he lifted his body to the branch's height, feet kicking the air.

    Alice was screaming encouragements or warnings – he couldn't tell. But the sound of her voice helped him orient himself as he pulled his upper body onto the sturdy branch, swing his legs upwards. Knowing that time was rapidly running out, Benny didn't even bother to look around before he pressed his feet against the branch and jumped towards the direction from which he'd heard Alice.

    His hands connect with wood and he seized it as hard as he could. Just then, he felt something large pass beneath his feet. Panicked, he struggle to pull himself up as he glanced downwards and saw that the lead velociraptor had made a jump at him, smashing against the branch as it soared through the air and coming crashing down on the other side. If he hadn't jumped, the dinosaur would have hit him and sent him sprawling to the jungle floor.

    The other raptor, however, had been slightly trailing and so didn't make the same mistake as its partner. It waited to have clear the low-hanging branch before leaping into the air. Benny screamed as he felt something connect with his foot, and a sudden weight dragging him down. Just as suddenly, the weight vanished, and felt Alice gripping his forearms, trying to help him up. Benny reached the branch and pulled himself onto it, lying on his stomach against the wood. Looking down, he saw the second raptor spit out his shoe.

    The other raptor pulled itself back to its feet. Both dinosaurs tried jumping up at the two humans in the tree, but couldn't get sufficient height. Benny let out a sigh and relaxed somewhat, though he made certain that none of his limbs were dangling. They were safe… for now.

**54**

SITTING IN A TREE

    "Do you think that they've left?"

    Benny glanced leaned over his woody perch and glanced down at the jungle floor below. Neither of the raptors were visible, but that didn't mean much.

    After a few failed attempts at jumping up to get at the humans in the tree, the pair of raptors had simply mulled about below, prowling around the tree trunk in no clear pattern, perhaps waiting for one of them to slip and fall out. Benny and Alice, however, had remained perfectly still, not daring to move overmuch lest they fall off their branches and into the hands – or rather, jaws – of the awaiting raptors.

    Benny wasn't sure how long they had been in this tree, being stalked by the dinosaurs below. He hadn't been wearing his watch at the time of the attack, so it was still in the trailer. From the position of the sun, he estimated that it was sometime around noon when the two raptors – having come to the conclusion that the tasty morsels in the tree weren't coming down – had both scampered off at the same time.

    Benny didn't trust it, however. It would be much too simple for them to have simply run off out of their sight, lying in the bushes, waiting for them to come down before springing out for the kill.

    "I don't know," he finally told Alice. "But we shouldn't go down. They might still be there, waiting."

    She nodded. After a moment, Alice said: "We can't wait up here forever, though."

    "No," Benny agreed. "We can't."

    "We'll have to come down eventually," she continued. "For food and water."

    "Yes, I know," Benny said absently, trying to work things out in his mind. "When we do come down, it shouldn't be anywhere near here. Even if those two things have left, we're still pretty close to the camp and the…" 

    Benny hesitated. It wasn't easy talking about what had just happened. Neither of them had spoken a word while the raptors were below, but he figured they had to come to terms with what had happened eventually. To pretend that everything was okay could very well be fatal.

    "The smell," Benny finished. "The smell of blood and meat will attract all kinds of predators and scavengers. This place could very well become a hotspot of activity soon, and we need to be as far removed as we can."

    "But how?" Alice asked. "It's a bad idea to climb down here, but how do we get anywhere else without getting down?"

    Benny stood on his branch – more motion than either of them had dared up to this point – and looked around.

    "The trees are pretty tightly packed. If we get high enough, I think we might be able to keep moving using the branches."

    "That's not very safe," Alice pointed out. "One slip, one weak branch, and we go sprawling to the ground, maybe breaking something in the process."

    "It's certainly safer than trying to come down anywhere near here," Benny answered.

    There was another moment of silence as that set in. "So where do we go?" Alice said after a while.

    "What do you mean?"

    "Well, do we just pick a direction at random here, or do we actually have a destination in mind?"

    Benny thought on that for a while. Alice was right: they needed to set their goals right now, to work out some kind of plan. If they just stumbled through the forest for now, they might regret it later.

    "The clearing," he finally said. "We should try and reach the clearing."

    "The clearing?" Alice replied incredulously. "The one with the T-Rex? Didn't P.J. say that was a likely game trail?"

    "Yes," Benny conceded. "But it may also be our best bet. Think about it: the lake in the clearing is the only natural source of water we know of on this island. I realize that watering holes attract predators, but we need water. We'll still try and stay in the trees as much as possible, coming down only we necessary."

    "And what if we bump into something that can actually reach into the trees?" Alice asked, picturing the towering form of the Tyrannosaurus in her head.

    Benny didn't have an answer for that. Instead, he said: "The clearing would also be our best chance of escaping the island."

    "What do you mean?" Alice asked quickly, a surge of hope audible in her voice.

    "The helicopters that your father went to contact should be arriving sometime today. With the camp gone to hell, our best chance of being spotted from the air would be somewhere in the open. That clearing would be the most obvious place to look for someone; everywhere else had nearly impenetrable tree-cover."

    "Okay…" Alice sounded hesitant, but willing. "Do you know what direction the clearing is in?"

    Benny blinked. That hadn't occurred to him. "Uh…"

    "Figures." Alice stretched. "Okay, let's see. We were heading south, towards the mountain in the centre of the island, so naturally the clearing would be to our north. And north is… that way. I think."

    "Not exactly an encouraging diagnostic."

    "Well, what do you want me do to? It's mid-day; there practically aren't any shadows to base myself on."

    "Should we wait for the shadows to get longer?"

    "No, I'm pretty sure I got it right. Besides, the longer we wait here, the less hours of daylight we'll have left once we get to the clearing." Alice seemed enthused now that the possibility of escape was at hand again. "The sooner we leave, the sooner we'll get there."

    "Well then," Benny said, rising to his feet on the branch, "Lead on."


	11. Sections 55 to 58 - Ghost Town

Disclaimer: John Hammond, InGen, Jurassic Park, Isla Nebular and Isla Sorna are all things that I have unconscionably stolen from Michael Crichton's novels Jurassic Park and The Lost World, as well as the movies of the same name. I have drawn on both forms of media (the books and the movies) for this story. It does not follow one or the other specifically… it is implied that John Hammond is still alive in this story, but I use dinosaur elements from the books… and a few that were in neither. None of the characters from Jurassic Park or Lost World, in either variation, appear in this story. Instead, I have chosen to plunk down a new set of characters on the island. Well, I guess that's all there is to say, except… enjoy the story.

Los Cinquo Muertes Chapter 1: Survey 

**In this instalment:**

55. Ghost Town

56. A Dinosaur with a Vendetta

57. Regrets

58. Forensics

**55**

GHOST TOWN

    Richley and his party had driven all night long, sleeping in shifts, following the narrow corridor that they had forged through the jungle canopy the day before. They stopped only once before they reached the encampment. The jeep's headlights had fallen on an X shaped obstruction in their path. It was the two logs they'd placed to remind themselves of the ditch that the jeep had pitched into the day before.

    All four remaining team members climbed out of the jeep. After a quick check with one of their two remaining flashlights, P.J. ascertained that the log bridge they'd erected yesterday was still serviceable. The four of them pushed the jeep across, and then simply hopped back in once they'd reached the other side and started driving again.

    No one had said a word since leaving the foothills. The death of Carlson hung heavily over them. They hadn't known the soldier who'd been killed by the Rex very well, but Carlson had been a member of Richley's team for years now. Even Ellis, who'd only been with the team for just under five days, felt the loss acutely. Being thrust into life-and-death situations – being forced to rely on each other for survival – tended to create bonds between people who had never even met before.

    It was mid-afternoon by the time they reached the encampment where they had left the rest of the team behind. Everyone who could sleep had done so, but after the exhaustive events of the last few days, they obtained little rest from their fitful naps. None of them were looking forwards to announcing to the others that not only had their mission at the mountain been a failure, but that they had lost Carlson as well. 

    It was Richley's turn in the driver's position, with Soles riding shotgun, making sure they were following the path and heading in the right direction. They came out of the jungle facing the triangle of trailers, a bunch of crates set up in the middle under a ramshackle shelter built with poles and a tarp. There was no one to be seen. Richley let the jeep come to a slow stop along the invisible lines of the trailer triangle.

    A distinctly unpleasant sensation crawled over the four persons in the jeep as they looked over the deserted encampment. Richley honked the horn of the jeep several times, expecting the others to come out of the trailers, but the camp remained motionless. Instead, there was a flurry of movement along the ground of the encampment. Dozens of small green dinosaurs scattered away in various direction at the blaring of the horn, like a flock of pigeons suddenly interrupted in the middle of a meal. 

    Very worried now, Richley jumped out of the jeep, leaving the engine idling, and began calling out his daughter's name. His cries reverberated emptily between the trailers. As Richley began running towards the nearest trailer, the other three team members left the jeep as well. They began walking towards the trailers as well, but more slowly. The empty encampment was enough to put anybody on edge, and the trio proceeded with caution and anxiety. 

    "Richley, be quiet!" P.J. called out in a hoarse voice. But even if Brent Richley had heard this, he paid the hunter no heed. He threw open the door of the nearest trailer and burst inside, still screaming his daughter's name. Although the trailer was obviously empty, Richley nonetheless frantically pushed aside equipment and gear so he could look over every centimetre of the trailer, just in case she might be hiding somewhere, hurt or unconscious…

    Meanwhile, Ellis, P.J. and Soles had reached the so-called shelter in the middle of the triangle. The crates had been placed in no apparent pattern, and several of them looked like they had been turned over. P.J. extended a leg and caught the side of one of the flipped-over crates with his boots, and pushed on the edge to bring it right side up again. As the redressed crate rocked slightly, the hunter caught a telltale splotch of colour across the top of the otherwise dull grey of the crate. A string of brown, dried liquid.

    "Blood."

    "Blood?" Ellis repeated. "Just what happened here?"

    P.J. looked up and saw Richley standing in the doorway of the trailer, panting and looking back at them with a mad look in his eyes. P.J. could see that the left corner of that same trailer had been liberally sprayed with blood as well.

    "A massacre," he answered.

**56**

A DINOSAUR WITH A VENDETTA

    Folker had to struggle to remain conscious as he tripped over something on the jungle floor and went sprawling to the ground. The pain from the gash in his side was searing, and the shock of the fall sent another wave of agony racking across his frayed nerves. Mustering all the will he could, trying to redirect the pain into something constructive, Folker forced his eyelids to remain open.

    He probably had nodded off even as he walked. The shock and the blood loss from his wound kept trying to push him into unconsciousness, but his survival instinct overrode the desire for sleep, pumping adrenaline into his leaking body, allowing him to keep on going forwards despite the fact that he had know idea where he was going or what he was going to do next. He knew he should stop and try to dress the wound, or at the very least check to see if he had indeed broken something earlier, running away from the creatures, but he felt that he had no other choice but to keep going. A single imperative drove him now: to get as far away from the encampment as possible.

    But there was a limit to how far single-minded willpower could overcome the biology of a body that was shutting down. He hadn't realized that he was blacking out even as he walked before he struck the ground. He hadn't even had the opportunity to put an arm in front of him to cushion the fall. This latest impact against this wounded side came close to allowing the encroaching darkness to envelop him fully.

    Determined not to give up, Folker drew his knees up under him and pushed himself into a crawling posture. His head was the last to come up, so focused had he been on the muddy ground below. His vision had blurred slightly, but his eyesight was excellent under normal circumstances and he could still see well enough to identify the small figure standing on a rock before him. It was a diminutive green biped, matchstick arms folded in front of it, tail swishing back and forth in curiosity.

    "Tiny." His voice was parched and rasped, and when he spoke he felt something grate against his insides. He was worried that a broken bone might be poking at his lungs.

    The small dinosaur cocked its head to the side and gave out a small trill, as if considering the kneeling figure in front of it. Folker glared back. In the rational, scientific part of his mind, he knew that it was extremely improbable that the animal before him was the same one they had captured on their first day on this damn island. But his mind was struggling not to succumb to unconsciousness, and in his state rationality seemed to blend with that bizarre logic of dreams and high fevers. And that logic suggested that he was standing – well, crouching – in front of a dinosaur with a vendetta, seeking retribution for its imprisonment.

    Tiny or whoever it was jumped down from his rock, craning its miniature head towards Folker's face. Folker scrambled backwards, away from the dinosaur, which simply hopped towards him using both hind legs at once, looking absurdly like a plucked bird. With effort, Folker pushed himself to his full height, towering considerably above the creature below. Tiny scampered off a short distance, but stopped on a fallen log about a meter away, turned around and trilled at him again.

    Folker stared at it a few more moments, and the dinosaur returned the state, apparently unimpressed by the larger animal before it. Frowning and clutching his wound, Folker began to turn to leave. He had just realized that he had absolutely no idea what direction he had been running – and consequently which direction might lead him back to the monster-infested encampment – when the bushes and leaves on the jungle floor began to rustle. Out jumped several more of Tiny's compatriots, hopping towards him and warbling in their high-pitched voices.

    More kept pouring out from the undergrowth, their green colouring providing the perfect camouflage, until it seemed that there were at least two dozen of the mouse-sized creatures standing around him. Folker remember what Benny had said about these beasts days – years, it seemed – ago. They were poisonous, their venom acting as an anaesthetic, and hunted in packs to bring down large enough animals through the action of multiple bites.

    Larger animals like an injured human, for example.

    With a startle, Folker realized that he'd been running through the jungle literally soaked in blood, standing out like a supernova in the night sky to any predator with a half-decent sense of smell. And it wasn't only his blood, seeping freely from the open gash in his side, but the blood of the monster that had nearly exploded onto him when the doomed soldier had shot it from behind.

    Frantically, Folker tried to remove his shirt. His wounded side screamed in protest at the manhandling, but Folker did his best to ignore the pain. He nearly ripped the shirt off as he struggled to pull the fabric over his head, his gestures uncoordinated due to his panic and weakness. The previously white shirt was now stained all over by the maroon of dried blood, a twisted tie-dye T-shirt from some flower child's worst nightmare. There was a large tear in the side wear the beast's claw had sliced through it with impunity.

    Folker threw the shirt at the assembled dinosaurs in front of him. Several of the diminutive beasts were swept off their paws as the heavier fabric struck them. As the shirt rippled from the escape attempts of the creatures under it, several of Tiny's comrades tried nipping at the fabric. As enticing as the smell of all that blood must have been, apparently cotton was not a staple of dinosaur diet. After their abortive attempts at consuming the shirt, the miniature predators turned their attention back towards Folker, boldly hopping forth.

    Folker turned around, scurrying away from the crowd of tiny dinosaurs as fast as he wound would allow him to do so. He could hear the minute sounds of dinosaur tweeting and small feet landing in water behind him, following him. He turned around to see whether he was outdistancing them with his considerably longer legs, but had barely craned his neck around when he felt his feet strike something and leave the ground.

    He landed brutally on his stomach. He felt something tear inside of him, accompanied by a searing blast of pain. Folker tried to draw breath to get back to his feet, but found himself gasping for air unsuccessfully. His lungs flapped futilely, a piece of bone having punctured the alveolar wall. From what seemed like a far-away distance, his oxygen-deprived brain perceived the sounds of dinosaurs around him, the sensation of little paws hopping onto his back, little teeth tearing into his flesh. This time, as darkness threatened to envelope him again, Folker gave out and embraced the onrushing shadows.

**57**

REGRETS

    Brent Richley sat unmoving on one of the crates – one that wasn't splattered with blood – in the middle of the largely deserted encampment. In many ways, he found that the emptiness of the encampment reflected the way he felt at that moment: empty, as if someone had reached into him and scooped out some vital part of his being.

    It was no great challenge to figure just what that missing something was. Alice. His team. Gone. Vanished. Dead.

    He'd failed in every respect. He'd failed as a team leader – several times over, in fact. He was responsible for the safety of each and every one of the people under his leadership, and he had led them straight into the jaws of death. He should have demanded more information on the island before he had agreed to do the job. He should have demanded a more up-to-date report on the place, or infrared overheads, or _something_. 

    And when danger had reared his head, what had he done? He told everyone to simply stay put while he went off on a fool's errand deeper into this tropical hell. The damn GTRX module that was supposed to contact the plane and get them off of the island hadn't worked – another failure. They had lost Carlson on that wild goose chase. And while he was out gallivanting, the rest of the team had been attacked.

    But the worst of it all – the most unforgivable thing – was that he had failed as a father. He couldn't imagine why he had ever consented to bring Alice along with him. He should have known better, overridden her protests and sent her off to a boarding school while he was working over here. No, better yet, he should never had accepted the job, and then Alice would be safe at home where she deserved, instead of… of…

    He couldn't finish the thought.

    Richley knew that if he wanted to he could find plenty of scapegoats that could take the blame for the events of the last few days – John Hammond, InGen, the governments of Costa Rica and the United States. But he was the one who had selected the personnel and made all the critical decisions – not only on this expedition, but also throughout his life.

    He'd always considered his wanderlust to be an admirable quality, but, giving it a good, hard look, what had it brought him other than pain and death? First his wife, then his team, and then his daughter…

    Richley slumped on his crate. His mind wouldn't let him come to terms with what had happened, but neither could he stop thinking about his role in this mess. Eventually, he knew, he'd have to confront his daughter's loss – and that prospect scared him more than anything the island could throw at him.

**58**

FORENSICS

    The tiny, green scavengers that had been drawn to the campsite by the smell of the copious amount of blood had been chased away by the arrival of the rather noisy, oddly coloured animals. Had the morose and inactive Brent Richley been alone, they probably would have returned, their short attention spans no longer detecting any danger. As it was, the animals were lined up at the edge of the jungle, their small, bulbous heads tracking the motion of the other three creatures. The _composognathus_ didn't recognize these newcomers, but the programming of their scavenger genes was clear: wait until the larger animals are finished before moving in for your share. 

    Unaware of their diminutive audience, P.J., Ellis and Soles had fanned out through the camp, searching for clues as to what had happened to their comrades, looking for anything that might give them a glimmer of hope. Both P.J. and Ellis moved with the precision and the efficiency of trained investigators. Soles hung back uncomfortably, uncertain of what they were looking for and unwilling to move around too much or touch anything lest she compromise the "crime scene".

    P.J. had been moving around the campsite in ever-tightening concentric circles, walking in a crouch, hands playing over the tall grass, grunting occasionally as he came upon something interesting. Ellis was rummaging around in the trailers and focusing on the more noticeable – the more human – aspects of the campsite. Finally, after almost an hour of searching, the two investigators rose as if of a common accord and walked towards each other. Soles joined them, forming a triangle next to one of the trailers. Richley was seated on one of the crates, his back turned to them. He was only a few meters away, but he might as well have been back on the mainland for all the help the grief-stricken man would provide them.

    Ellis spoke first. "There's something I don't understand."

    Soles looked incredulous. "_Something_? You mean that there's something that you do understand about all this?"

    "No – well, yes, I mean – it's obvious that they were attacked by something. Of course, I don't know what that was."

    "Couldn't it have just been the thing that attacked us in the clearing?" Soles offered up.

    "The Rex?" P.J. pondered. "No way. That thing is big. There would be signs all around us if something that size had come through here. Broken trees, overturned trailers. Not to mention footprints in the mud."

    "Didn't it rain?" Soles pointed out.

    "Yeah, but something that size has to weight a fair amount. Any prints would still be visible. On the other hand, smaller creatures probably would have had their tracks erased by the downpour. And I think that whatever did this had to be small – relatively speaking of course." He glanced around. "It looks too surgical."

    "Surgical?" Soles repeated, glancing purposefully at a nearby spot on the ground that had been liberally sprayed with now-maroon blood.

    "For animals, I mean. The perimeter is mostly intact, the grass isn't very trampled, and most of the materiel on-site seems to have been undisturbed."

    "The door to one of those trailers took a real beating," Ellis mentioned.

    "Even still. I think what did this was more likely than not the same things that attacked us back at the InGen compound."

    "They couldn't have gotten here that fast," Soles said.

    "It's a big island," P.J. answered. "There are probably several groups of them."

    "I agree," Ellis said. "We know how fast those things are. And it looks like whatever happened here happened quickly. Inside the trailer – the one whose door looks like it was rammed – it looks like everybody just dropped everything where they were. The computer screen was still on, showing Benny's dinosaur encyclopaedia."

    "Anything interesting?" P.J. asked.

    "Wuerhosaurus?" Ellis appeared uncertain. "Anyway, it looked like one of those Stegosaurus things. Certainly nothing that could do this. But that's what I wanted to ask you guys about: where are the bodies? There's plenty of blood, but I haven't seen any bodies."

    "I've been thinking about that myself," P.J. answered. "I think whatever attacked the camp took the bodies with them."

    "Can they do that?" Soles asked.

    "There are known modern equivalents," P.J. said. "In Africa, leopards are known to drag up some of the smaller kills into their trees with them."

    "A person isn't exactly small," Soles pointed out. "Especially not if you're dragging them up a tree."

    "We have no idea how strong these things are. Besides, from their physical makeup, I doubt they ever go up trees. They probably have a ground level nest somewhere. By a clump of trees or in a cave."

    "So… if there aren't any bodies… we don't know how many of our people died here." Soles looked hopeful. "Is there any way to tell if some of them got away?"

    Ellis looked at P.J., who shook his head. "The only thing we can tell for certain is that not everybody died here."

    "Not everybody?"

    "The blood traces on the ground lead me to believe that two people were…" He hesitated. "Brought down… over by the crates. Another two between the crates and the perimeter over there. And another one over by the side of that trailer." He pointed out the locations.

    "But over by that trailer," P.J. continued, "There's such a large spot that I can tell what happened. It might be one person, just as it might be two."

    "Which means that there were about six or seven casualties," Ellis added up. She looked at P.J. pointedly. "There were ten people at this camp."

    "That means that three or four people managed to get away!" Soles exclaimed.

    P.J. shook his head glumly. "No, it doesn't mean anything. They could have been brought down barely a few meters into the jungle and we'd never be able to find any trace of them with this undergrowth."

    "Pessimist," Soles accused.

    "Realist," P.J. returned sadly, though there was a noticeable edge to his voice. The independent minded hunter had never taken well to being challenged.

    "People." Ellis' tone was slightly reproachful, like a teacher reining in children. She glared pointedly for a second, and then softened her gaze. She turned to look over at Richley, still seated on his crate. "Is there any way to determine who might have – _might have_ – gotten away."

    "Not really. But there were the two rifles next to the blood spots–"

    "And a fresh clip," Ellis interjected, holding it up.

    "Which might indicate that either Meiller or his men went down there. If – and that's a very big if – people did manage to get away, it's probably a good sign that we haven't found the third rifle." P.J. craned his neck to look at one of the trailers. "We're going to want to take those rifles with us."

    "Definitely," Ellis said.

    "Do you know how to shot?"

    "I've never had to… but I did do a tour in the Gulf. I was only an analyst, but everybody on base had to know how to use those things in case some Iraqis got delusions of grandeur and tried to attack."

    "Good enough," P.J. said. He glanced at Richley. "I don't think the boss is up to automatics right about now. So I'll take one rifle, and you take the other."

    "What about me?" Soles asked despondently. "Should I try throwing stones?"

    P.J. reached for his hip and drew his handgun from his belt. He flipped the weapon around a presented it to the cartographer. "Take this. Be careful, though – the bullets that are in there now are all the bullets that are left."

    "Thank you," Soles said, somewhat surprised. Usually the hunter wasn't one for sharing his weapons – or trusting others.

    "We can use all the loud distractions we can get if we run into trouble," P.J. added.

    _Well, that explains it_, Soles thought ruefully. Out loud, she asked: "So now that we're all packing heat… what do we do?"

    There was a pause as the trio thought about what their next move should be. P.J. spoke first:

    "I think it's obvious. We've got no communications and we can't stay here. We pile into the jeep and head towards the plane."

    "I thought we decided against that yesterday," Ellis pointed out.

    "The day before yesterday, actually. And that was when we thought we'd be able to contact the plane from the InGen compound and spare ourselves five days' trek through the muddy jungle. But calling in the cavalry isn't an option anymore. We could sit around and wait for them to wonder why we aren't checking in, but I don't like that idea at all. If we're getting off this island, we're going to have to reach our ride ourselves."

    "We can't leave now," Soles said. "Some of our people might still be out there."

    "You're dreaming," P.J. said. "No one is going to be walking out of that jungle asking for a lift."

    "We can't just give up on them – not without any hard evidence."

    "Look around you, Soles. No-one could have survived this."

    "How can you say that? I think you're seriously underestimating our people."

    "And I think you're engaging in nothing more than wishful thinking."

    Both of them turned towards Ellis, who had remained quiet during the heated exchange. After shifting uncomfortably under their stares, the government attaché finally weighed in: "I agree with P.J."

    Soles made a disgusted sound. If P.J. felt any triumph, he didn't show it.

    "We can't stay here and hope that someone comes waltzing out of the jungle," Ellis explained. "We don't know if anybody survived, not for sure. We don't know how many might be out there. We don't know where they might be know, if they're injured, what direction they went in, whether their heading for the plane or the mountain or just wandering aimlessly in the jungle… There are simply to many unknowns."

    "So that's it, then," Soles said ruefully. "We just give up."

    "We're not just giving up," Ellis chided. "Don't you think that the families of the people who died here deserve to know what happened to their loved ones? Don't you think that the people who brought this mess into being should be made to be accountable for what happened on this island? How can that happen is there isn't anybody left to make those accusations? Did you ever wonder what would happen if we're never heard of again? The pilots of the plane might come out looking for us, or the government might send some more people in to find us. That will only end in more deaths."

    Ellis sucked in a breath. "I'm here as the representative of the U.S. government, Ms. Soles, and as such, I have a responsibility to minimize casualties should a dangerous situation develop. Right now, that means finding a way of warning the rest of the world about the danger here."

    There was a moment of silence following Ellis' speech. Finally, P.J. piped up: "The sooner we leave…"

    "Right," Ellis said. "We should pack in any useful equipment that's lying around the camp into the jeep – especially the rifles – and make for the plane. With luck, we might be able to reach the clearing before sundown."

    "We should continue driving in shifts," P.J. said. "We stop only to refill on food and water until we reach the plane."

    "What about him?" Soles asked, jerking her thumb at Richley.

    "I'll talk to him," Ellis said. "You two start packing the jeep."

    The hunter and the cartographer nodded their acknowledgement. Ellis turned around and looked at their ersatz leader. He didn't seem to have moved at all: he was still sitting on the crate, shoulders slumped, hands in his lap. She approached him slowly.

    "Richley?" He didn't so much as budge. "Richley?"

    "Hmm – oh, yes?" He looked up at her, but Ellis had the unpleasant sensation that he wasn't really looking at anything.

    "We're getting ready to leave, Richley."

    "Okay," he said. Ellis was disquieted by his lack of protest. He had even more invested in this team than Soles, and more to lose if they left – but then, he had already lost all that, hadn't he. Therein lied the problem.

    "I'm staying here," Richley said after a moment.

    "You can't," Ellis answered reflexively.

    "Everything I had was here. Where else would I go?"

    Ellis shook her head. She had developed a blooming headache arguing with the other two, and it didn't look as if things were going to be any easier. She wished she could take some pain relievers but she figured that they might need all the pharmaceuticals they could lay their hands on. Speaking of which, she made a mental note to disinfect and bandage the wound P.J. had taken to his cheek. The macho male type reacted to injury by either refusing to accept pain or became a hypochondriac overnight, and the hunter seemed to belong to the former group.

    "Richley, we have to keep on moving. If this place was attacked once, it could be attacked again – not to mention that the smell will end up attracting some predators larger than Tiny's cousins sooner or later."

    Richley shrugged and said nothing.

    Ellis sighed. Self-preservation wasn't going to work. Maybe the preservation of other would.

    "Richley, you're the team leader. You're _their_ leader. They need you."

    "P.J. and Soles can take care of themselves."

    "Yes, but we can always use another person with us. Someone with your experience is invaluable."

    Richley snorted, and when he spoke his voice was laden with contempt. It was the first trace of emotion he'd shown since she began talking to him. "That experience is what landed us into this mess in the first place. You want my help? You're probably safer off without me."

    Ellis restrained a sudden urge to slap him. Here they were, in the middle of a life-or-death situation, and their man that was supposed to be leading them was shirking his responsibility to wallow in self-pity. Granted, he had just lost his daughter, but now was hardly the time to give into his emotions–

    Or then again, perhaps playing to his emotions was exactly what she should do. She bit her lip – she felt terrible about what she was going to do, but what she had said earlier was true: they needed everything and everyone they could lay their hands on if they were to get out of this alive.

    "Richley… P.J. and I had the chance to conduct a quick forensic examination of the encampment. We think there may have been survivors."

    Richley turned back towards her. His eyes had regained their focus, and his forehead was creased in concentration. Relieved to see that she had jolted him out of his stupor, she continued:

    "At least three and probably four people made it out of the camp – there's no trace that they were killed."

    "Maybe they were just killed outside of the camp," Richley said. There was an almost pleading undercurrent in his voice, as if begging Ellis to contradict him. It felt odd to be arguing the reverse of what she'd stated barely minutes ago. Well – she'd gone this far.

    "It's a possibility, it's true – but are you willing to take the risk of leaving… _someone_ stranded out there to fend for herself – I mean, for their own – just because you think they're already dead? Rather than sitting around here moping, don't you think you should be doing everything you can to find them?"

    Richley stood, squaring away his shoulders as he did so. "What do we do now?"

    "We're packing in as much as we can in the jeep, and we're going to head straight north – making a beeline towards our plane."

    "We're leaving?"

    "You don't think anybody would stay at ground zero of a slaughter, would you? You know your team members are smarter than that."

    "But how do you know that they'd be heading towards the plane. Wouldn't they be heading towards the mountain instead?"

    "Why?"

    "Why – hoping to run into us, of course."

    Ellis shook her head. "No. If they missed us, they would have ended up going in the wrong direction for nothing. It's more than probable that their goal would be the same as ours: getting to the plane and off the island."

    "They think they're being airlifted, remember?" Richley said glumly.

    Ellis thought fast. "Then we'd still be heading in the right direction, because the pick-up point was supposed to be the clearing. We have to pass by there to get to the plane."

    Richley nodded. He still seemed distant, but at least he was up and active.

    "Come on," Ellis said. "Let's give them a hand with the packing."


	12. Sections 59 to 61 - Clash of the Titans

Disclaimer: John Hammond, InGen, Jurassic Park, Isla Nebular and Isla Sorna are all things that I have unconscionably stolen from Michael Crichton's novels Jurassic Park and The Lost World, as well as the movies of the same name. I have drawn on both forms of media (the books and the movies) for this story. It does not follow one or the other specifically… it is implied that John Hammond is still alive in this story, but I use dinosaur elements from the books… and a few that were in neither. None of the characters from Jurassic Park or Lost World, in either variation, appear in this story. Instead, I have chosen to plunk down a new set of characters on the island. Well, I guess that's all there is to say, except… enjoy the story.

Los Cinquo Muertes Chapter 1: Survey 

**In this instalment:**

59. Clash of the Titans

60. Reunion

61. Comparing Notes

**59**

CLASH OF THE TITANS

    Alice dunked her head into the sparkling blue lake, taking in deep gulps of water even as she let the cool fluid ripple across her face. Despite having had the shade of the canopy constantly above them (and sometimes below them) as they moved, having to walk all that distance in the afternoon heat had been exhausting.

    Alice pulled back, her thirst quenched and feeling a little refreshed. What she really wanted was a bath, or preferably a warm shower. She was drenched in sweat, her clothes were sticky, and neither her body nor her garments had a particularly appealing smell. But they couldn't afford to linger around the water hole any longer than necessary. Besides, considering the heavy-looking clouds that were once again roiling on the horizon, it looked like she might be getting her shower after all.

    Although Benny and Alice had initially decided to move using the treetops, that option had soon proven to be more difficult than they had expected. Two hours into their arboreal journey, they had run into a clear patch with no way to go but down. Though they had descended only reluctantly, they decided by unspoken agreement to continue on foot from that point on. They had certainly made better time going through the jungle proper rather than trying to stick to the canopy.

    Alice threw a few strands of hair that had fallen into the lake and gotten wet over her shoulder. She glanced up at Benny, who returned her contented smile, his dark face glistening with beads of water. Alice felt her stomach rumble, probably in response to the sudden influx of water that it had been craving for so long. Then again, it might be rumbling because she was hungry. There was no way to tell for certain, not even with the shadows, but Alice estimated that suppertime had come and gone. Once they got back into the jungle – and, more likely than not, back up into a tree – they would have to look for something to put under teeth. Hopefully some of those fruit things might be lying around.

    Alice was about to communicate as much to Benny when she thought she heard a deep, sonorous ringing. Another followed the first, then another, following a steady rhythm. Alice looked back at the lake, where ripples were crisscrossing the surface in response to each heavy beat.

    Alice rose from her crouch at the edge of the lake. She saw Benny pointing behind her, and turned to see what he was pointing at. Heading towards them – or rather, towards the waterhole – was the largest creature she'd ever seen. The massive dinosaur looked like a giraffe on steroids, an incredibly long neck jutting out of a colossal grey body and ending in an odd-shaped head that looked small in comparison to the rest of the gargantuan being.

    "What the hell is that?" Alice asked, gaping at the thing.

    "A sauropod," Benny answered. "I'm not sure which species exactly, but I saw a whole batch of these things in the encyclopaedia."

    "Friendly?"

    "Uh… not carnivorous, if that's what you mean. I don't have a clue as to whether Mr. Big over there had a happy childhood, if you're asking me if it has a warm disposition."

    "Should we get out of the way?" She watched the hulking creature lumber steadily on towards them. "We've got plenty of time, at the rate this thing is going."

    "They didn't have the Slim Fast plan in the Jurassic Era," Benny cracked with a smile. "I'm sure its girth has evolutionary advantages, otherwise it wouldn't have lasted – or spawned so many other species like it." The biologist watched it's slow approach. "Though I can't really think of one right about now."

    "Still – better get out of the way," Alice said. "Just in case it doesn't spot us lying underfoot."

    Matching actions to words, Benny and Alice moved out of the thing's path to the waters of the lake. They stood off to the side, at the edge of the jungle, and watched as the imposing beast grew ever closer.

    The daunting animal stopped a few meters away from the lake. Its comparatively thin tail hovering in the air behind it, acting as a counterweight, the dinosaur began to drop its impossibly long neck towards the still-rippling waters below. Before dunking its head into the waters, however, it seemed to take note of the two humans for the first time, swinging the last few upper vertebrae of its neck to face them.

    Up close, Alice could see that the dinosaur's grey skin was mottled with a maroon-and-purple pattern under its throat, around its eyes and around nasal fosses that were set deep into a bony crest beginning that began only about half-way into its head, rather than on the snout as for most animals. From this vantage point, Alice could make out more details of its physiology. For instance, its legs were so high that a jeep could probably drive right under it's belly. The front legs, for some reason Alice couldn't fathom, seemed much higher than the ones in the back.

    The dinosaur let out a low, warbling cry that – strange as it maybe be – sounded almost curious, blasting them with warm breath that stank of decaying vegetation trapped between it's many rows of teeth. Alice resisted the urge to wave a hand in front of her face. Finally, having decided that the strange new animals – whatever else they may be – posed no threat to it, the dinosaur swung its head back towards the lake, stretching downwards to lower its mouth to the water and drink.

    Alice wondered just how much water and food something that size had to drink and eat simply in order to stay active. The animal was drawing sizeable droughts of water from the lake, causing the water to ripple outwards.

    Alice frowned. It looked as if some of those ripples were heading in the wrong direction. Almost as if something was making them vibrate. There was also a low, basso thumping sound to be heard. Alice turned to look out at the rest of the clearing expecting to see one of the sauropod's herd mates walking towards the lake to get a drink.

    It was as if the jungle exploded behind her. There was a loud crashing sound and pieces of wood with leaves still attached of them went flying outwards, one piece passing so close to her head that she heard an aborted whistling sound in her ear. Benny and Alice, moving reflexively to avoid the shrapnel, and pushed by the force of the crash behind them, went sprawling to the ground. Just as quickly, they spun themselves around onto their backs to see what had happened.

    Looming above them and looking down at them from above its folded, vestigial arms, the Tyrannosaurus Rex stood with its legs braced apart, ready to use it's powerful muscles to pounce or pursue, as the case may be. Rearing its head back on its neck, it let out an ear splitting roar, revealing rows of serrated teeth.

    Alice would have screamed, but before she could draw the breath from her battered lungs another cry, deeper and more powerful than she could ever manage, rang out from behind her. The sauropod drinking at the lake, for all the lumbering gait it had demonstrated earlier, took little time to react to the presence of the powerful predator. It's neck swung upwards at a speed that, to Alice, looking up while lying flat on her back on the ground, seemed vertiginous. Soon enough the vulnerable head and neck of the massive creature was well out of the Tyrannosaurus' reach.

    This did not seem to deter the great hunter, however. Loosing a challenging roar from its throat and ignoring the smaller and significantly less meaty prey at its feet, the Rex sprung forwards. Benny had to roll to his right to avoid being stepped on as the mighty predator brought down it's three-toed foot, sprinting towards the sauropod by the lake.

    The Rex reared its head back even as it ran, then lanced out, his powerful jaws jutting apart as if yawning. Just as his snout reached the leathery skin of the sauropod, he gnashed his jaws shut. Benny and Alice, still trying to pull their legs back under them, saw the edge of the Rex's snout disappear into the larger dinosaur's flank.

    The sauropod let out a wail at the strike. It began moving, backwards and turning so it could face the attacking predator. Despite having a pair of jaws that could rip a lamppost out of a street, the Rex couldn't compete with the massive weight that had just became mobile under its grasp. The Rex backed away, tearing out a portion of flesh and meat from the sauropod's flank in the process.

    Alice felt a pressure on her arm. Benny had grabbed her, and was now motioning towards the lake. Alice nodded and began getting to her feet.

    As the sauropod kept backing away and turning, the Rex opened its jaws and lowered its head to the ground, vertically, dropping the bloody mass of meat on the jungle floor. A few bits of meat still clung to its blood-speckled teeth, but the Rex's principle weapon had always been its jaws, which were once again free of any obstructions. It took a few steps away from the shifting mass of the sauropod, cocking its head as if considering the best angle of attack.

    Benny and Alice ran towards the lake, trying as well they could to put the mass of the sauropod between themselves and the Rex, even though the latter didn't seem to be interested in them. The sauropod, in the meantime, had stopped spinning in place, now facing the Rex. There was a large, gaping wound in its side; rivulets of blood streamed down its flank. It tensed visibly, muscles in the front and rear legs tightening.

    Suddenly, to their surprise, the sauropod pushed off with its front legs, rearing up into the air, supported only by its rear legs and its tail, coiled around its legs for support. The massive beast couldn't draw itself up to its full height, like a bear – such a gesture would no doubt have crushed most of its bone structure in the lower part of its body – but nonetheless managed to achieve a very impressive height simply by extending it's forward body into the air at a more or less forty-five degree angle.

    It hovered like that for a moment; its front paws beating the air. The Rex, in reaction, lowered itself so that its own head was below the arc of its back. Taking two large steps forward, it lanced out with its head, jaws snapping shut with a crack, threatening the sauropod's vulnerable ability. Despite the distinctly avian behaviour many of these creatures had so far exhibited, the snapping-jaw attack reminded Benny of an alligator.

    Then the sauropod dropped, bringing its tremendous weight crashing back down to the ground. The Rex pulled its head out just in time to avoid the tree-trunk legs for dropping onto it and crushing its skull like an overripe melon. The ground shook under the impact when those front legs hit the ground with jarring force, like a small, localized earthquake. Alice and Benny lost their balance, tripping over their own legs and splashing into the edge of the lake.

    The Rex roared its frustration at being denied yet again. The sauropod responded with its own wail, observing the predator wearily from its lofty perch atop its extended neck. The Rex took a few steps back, turning it's body so that it was perpendicular to the sauropod, hoping, no doubt, to use it's greater speed and manoeuvrability to attack the massive dinosaur from an undefended angle. Having detected a possible avenue of attack, the Rex sprinted towards the creature's right side. But the sauropod was ready for this as well.

    "Tail!" Benny cried, pushing himself backwards into the lake, throwing an arm out as he fell to catch Alice and knock her down as well. Once again the two crashed to the ground, their rumps striking the bottom of the shallow lake. Above them, the sauropod's tail, significantly thicker-looking from so close, swished past them with enough speed to summon a burst of wind, causing their wet hair to gush to one side. Shortly thereafter, the strident whistling sound of a rapid-moving object could be heard.

    Unconcerned about the two smallish creatures that it had nearly smashed into boneless piles of flesh, the sauropod's tail kept on swinging around, rigid at it's base but loose at it's end. The tail caught the running Tyrannosaurus on its right side, doubling as both a mass and a whip, slicing a long, red gash on the Rex's right flank while simultaneously slamming the predator to the left. The Rex went crashing against one of the of sauropod's thick legs, off-balance, keeling as one foot skittered.

    What happened next, Benny and Alice wouldn't be able to say. Sitting in the shallow waters of the lake, the sauropod's massive girth blocked their view of Rex. They saw the sauropod tense and rear up on its hind legs again. The Rex must have been able to keep its balance after all, because it scampered out from under the massive herbivore's shadow.

    The ground shook once again as the sauropod landed. Having never bothered to get up after the last time they were knocked down, Alice and Benny felt the vibrations under them but weren't otherwise affected. The Rex kept on running, putting some distance between it and the infuriating animal. After a few moments, it stopped long enough to turn around and blast the sauropod with a final, vengeful roar, then trotted off across the clearing at a more moderate pace.

    The sauropod remained where it was, watching the fleeing Tyrannosaurus, vigilant if the predator decided to return for another go. Glad for the mass of the long-necked dinosaur between them and the retreating Rex, Benny and Alice rose to their feet once again.

    "Let's get back into the trees," Benny suggested.

    Alice offered no disagreement.

**60**

REUNION

    The jeep had made good time through the jungle. After the initial, brutal ploughing that had first created the path between the clearing and the abandoned encampment three days ago, the survey team had used it several times, to fetch water, equipment and set up the camouflage at the clearing. As such, it remained in good enough condition despite the downpour that had fallen yesterday. They had never had to stop the jeep for clear vines or other obstacles, maintaining a steady, fast pace.

    Nonetheless, the light was filtering out of the day when they first saw the obstruction lying in their path. There was still sufficient sunlight to see by, even though it had a faintly reddish tint, and it framed the sudden wall in the jungle in shadows.

    "What the hell happened here?" Soles asked. She ran her eyes over the jungle as P.J. slowed the jeep down. In the backseat, Ellis stirred from her catnap as the engine shifted into neutral. Richley didn't move or say anything, staring straight ahead of him with disinterested gaze.

    "This must be the camouflage Meiller and his boys were supposed to put up to conceal the entrance of the path leading to the encampment," P.J. said. _For all the good that it did, _P.J. wanted to add, but didn't. "Better take it down. I don't know how thick that thing is, and I don't want to damage our only ride out of here. Richley?"

    The other man said nothing but rose from his seat, swinging his legs over the side of the jeep. Putting on the parking brake, P.J. followed him out. They both walked over to the leafy barrier standing before them. The design looked simple enough: two large wooden beams had been chopped down and stood up against the rest of the trees in an **X** pattern. Then a liberal quantity of foliage had been attached to the beams with vine as rope, giving the illusion of fallen trees overrun with overgrowth.

    Seizing one of the beams in both hands, Richley and P.J. lifted the heavy wooden log up just enough to dislodge it from the position Meiller and his soldiers had wedged it in, and then gently lowered it to the ground. They then rolled it along the ground, making sure that it was no longer in the path of their jeep. The two men then repeated the process for the other beam. Afterwards, although a few stray pieces of foliage had fallen to the ground, their path to the clearing was clear. P.J. glanced out the opening into the tall-grassed area, but it seemed deserted of animals.

    They walked back to the jeep and clambered in. P.J. shifted the jeep back into drive and they were off, quickly passing the border of the jungle and emerging into the clearing. With Soles' assistance, P.J. pointed the jeep in the general vicinity of north, hoping that the fading light would be sufficient to find the path they had made through the jungle at the beginning of week. Lightening flashed to the east, heralding an incoming storm.

    They rumbled on through the clearing, trying to tear through as fast as they could. It was an essentially psychological reaction; on open ground, they would be able to spot predators at a distance, and use the jeep's superior speed to escape. But when faced with a dangerous environment, the long-lived and primordial human instinct was to seek an enclosed space, which would cut off avenues of attack and make defence easier.

    Thinking about that, P.J. let one hand drift from the steering wheel and fall onto the butt of his rifle, if only for confirmation that it was still there. Soles, sitting next to him still had his pistol, tucked in her shorts on her right hip. Ellis, in the back, had the other rifle. He glanced in the mirror. Ellis was supposed to be getting some rest, but seemed to have been brought wide-awake by their halt at the clearing's edge. Richley, sitting next to her, was as mute as he had been since they'd left the devastated encampment. At least his eyes had lost their vacant look. Instead, Richley wore a puzzled, concentrated expression, as if straining to hear some distant sound.

    "Does anybody else hear that?" the team leader asked.

    P.J. blinked and had to refrain from starting. Apparently, Richley _had_ been straining to hear something.

    "Like what?" Soles asked.

    "Like…" Richley drifted off, his head turning slowly in a search pattern. "There!" he said, finally fixing on a direction and pointing with his finger.

    Everybody turned to follow his finger. In the distance, silhouetted by the setting sun, two dark figures ran through the tall grass. Details where impossible to make out because of the distance and the lighting, but P.J. was sure he could make out what could only be described as arms being waved in the air. Now that he was paying attention, he thought he could hear the faint cries that had gotten Richley's attention in the first place. There could be no mistake about it: those were humans running towards them.

    "I'll be damned," P.J. whispered. He had been convinced by the brutality and speed of the attack at the encampment that nobody could have survived.

    "Richley!" Ellis cried out. A quick glance in the rear-view mirror showed that he had stood up in his seat and seemed about ready to leap out of the moving vehicle. "Wait until we've slowed down!"

    Matching actions to words, P.J. depressed the gas pedal, letting the jeep glide to a stop in the tall grasses. Before the forward momentum had ceased, however, Richley had already leaped out. He stumbled as he landed but did not fall, then began running towards the approaching figures. Despite the sound of the winding-down motor in his ears, it seemed that he could make out one words being carried on the wind: "Daddy!"

    "Alice!" Richley returned the cry, still beating through the tail grasses. As he got closer, he could begin to make out his daughter's golden crown of hair and her brown-and-tan outfit. Then, in almost no time at all, they were upon each other, and he seized her in his arms, bodily lifting her off the ground, swinging her around, as their momentum would have otherwise carried them past each other.

    Then another person was besides them, panting heavily but earnestly slapping Richley on his back. Richley allowed one arm to break his embrace with his daughter to reach out and grab Benny's hand, who pumped it enthusiastically.

    Soon the three of them where joined by the rest of Richley's group as P.J. brought the jeep over to where Richley, Alice and Benny had converged. Ellis and Soles jumped out of the jeep to join their three companions in the joyful reunion, while P.J. placed his hands on the top of the windshield and pulled himself up, observing the other five from this height, somewhat distant but no less relieved.

    After the hugs and embrace were finished – though Richley kept an arm around Alice's shoulders – the questions began flying:

    "Where are the helicopters?"

    "How did you guys get out of there?"

    "Where's Carlson?"

    "Do you know if anybody else made it out?"

    "P.J. – what happened to your cheek?"

    "Did you guys go _swimming_?"

    In the exuberance of the moment, questions succeeded questions, with nobody bothering to stop the inquiries long enough to actually give an answer. But this didn't deter them at all, and the unanswered queries went ignored as the team's delight at being reunited fuelled them, punctuating the unthinking exchange with more embraces and slapping. It would be impossible to tell how long it was before P.J. spoke up – not long enough, certainly.

    "I hate to break this up," he said, sounding sincere, speaking loud enough to silence the rest of the group. "But we need to get moving again. We should find our path before the sun sets too low to see without the headlights, and we need to get under the cover of the jungle before we get drenched by the rain."

    Confirming his words, a distant thunderclap rumbled across the sky.

    "Yes," Benny agreed. "We should go now. The Rex was here barely a couple of hours ago, and I can tell you that it did _not_ get its supper."

    As P.J. dropped back into his seat and revved the engine, the other five clambered into the jeep, squeezing in so that everybody could fit. With a large U-turn through the tall grass, the jeep resumed its course towards the other side of the clearing and the path that would hopefully lead them to their plane off the island.

**61**

COMPARING NOTES

    It didn't take very long before the threatening storm erupted to life, instantly unleashing a steaming downpour onto the tropical island. The cascading water quickly punched through the jungle canopy, running along the branches and leaves and causing small waterfalls when there was no longer any lower surface for the water to run to. Even under the thick covering provided by the jungle, the six occupants were soaked and chilled to the bone in less than five minutes. P.J. brought the jeep to a halt in order to set up the metal framework and the fabric covering that served as the vehicle's roof. 

    With the roof attached to the front windshield, the already cramped jeep seemed to get even smaller. P.J. and Richley, the largest of the six, were seated in the two front seats, while Benny, Ellis, Soles and Alice were squeezed into the back seat. Certainly not contributing to the atmosphere was the fact that they had no change of clothes ever since they had left encampment, their current ones bearing all the telltale signs of the strenuous physical activity of the last few days. They were all sweaty, exhausted physically and emotionally, hungry and – thanks to the rain – wet and cold.

    Still, no one was complaining about the tight quarters, or the quarters themselves. To be able to recover two of their number they had, for the most part, dismissed as dead, a little less room was a small price to pay. Despite the fact that they were supposed to be sleeping in shifts, and despite the draining events of the last few days, everybody was still riding the emotion high of their reunion a few hours before. The feeling was artificial and sustained by little more than adrenaline, and P.J. was dreading the inevitable crash.

    Barely half-an-hour after the rain began coming down, it became amply clear to the surviving members of the survey team why the idea of driving back to the plan had been nixed two days ago. As predicted, the jungle floor soon became little more than a face of mud of varying depths, all of it very soft and yielding on the surface because of the constant rain, but at the bottom the water had accumulated and weighed down the soil. This, combined with the quicksand-like suction of the base water, made getting their jeep to even move forward a challenge, let alone maintaining a constant speed towards the plane. It was only a matter of time before their forward momentum was killed entirely, the wheels spinning futilely in the silt.

    "Should we get out and push?" Alice suggested pertly. 

    P.J. turned to look at her. "Yes."

    Always aware of the fact that they were stalled in the middle of an environment that had proved very hostile to them, the occupants of the jeep had to get out of their vehicle to push. While Alice revved the engine and spun the wheels, the five adults tried to dig the wheels out of the muck into which they had sunk, but more simply oozed into the holes they had crafted. In the end, the five of them had to congregate at the back of the jeep and simply try to rock it forwards and out of the pit they had dug themselves into. By the time they were successful in their efforts, all of them had been liberally sprayed with mud. They packed back into the jeep, leaking water and mud.

    As it was increasingly obvious that no one was going to be falling asleep anytime soon, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to for the reunited team members to compare notes on what had happened to them. Benny and Alice, though they already knew that the mission to the mountain had been a bust, couldn't help but express disappointment when they were told of the mysterious malfunction of the GTRX module, which was, in any case, still lying in the dark inside the supposedly-deserted InGen compound. Their mood dropped even lower when Ellis told them what happened to Carlson, and what they had found back at their encampment once they had arrived. Though Ellis spared them the gory details, they had seen the 'raptors in action, and could easily imagine for themselves what it must have been like.

    After having to get out of the jeep to clear a fallen tree and an overgrowth of vines, Benny and Alice related their own side of the story. They told the rest of the team about their encounter with the Triceratops – though Alice dutifully omitted to mention to her father about having approached the beast. They told them about the suddenness of the 'raptors' attack and their own escape, then finally about the monumental battle they had witnessed by the lake in the clearing.

    "Eventually, as it started getting darker," Alice said, "We realized that we might have to spend the night by the clearing. Well, needless to say, we didn't feel like going to ground again after what we had just seen. So we started looking for a spot in the branches where we might be able to rest for the night." 

    "Where we could rest without having to worry about turning over in our sleep and falling a few meters down to the jungle floor," Benny added.

    "Benny wouldn't stop talking about that!" Alice exclaimed. "It reached the point where we had to go down to the ground to gather some broken branches to make a sort of crib–"

    "Hey, hey! _Perimeter_." Benny looked snubbed.

    "Yeah, sure, whatever. I think you just don't like heights. It would help explain that whole fear of flying thing you have."

    "I'm not afraid of heights – I was just showing a perfectly healthy interest in my own self-preservation. If I was afraid of heights, I wouldn't have spent all that time walking along the treetops, would I? And for your information, I am _not_ afraid of flying. I just don't like it because I get queasy."

    "Anyway," Alice said with a malicious smirk, "We were trying to fix that up when we heard what sounded like an engine. We immediately rushed towards the edge of the jungle, looking out into the clearing, scanning the skies because we thought it might be the helicopters. We couldn't see anything at first, and the sound died away pretty fast. Then I spotted a part of the jungle that looked as if it had just vanished."

    "I figured it was the spot that Meiller and his men had camouflaged," Benny explained. "So somebody was coming back into the clearing – humans, because it was too precise to be animals."

    "We immediately started running towards it," Alice continued. "Then we saw the jeep pull out, and start heading right for the other side of the clearing. At first, we were worried that you wouldn't see us and just keep on going."

    "You can thank your father that we didn't," Ellis said. "I'm still not sure how he managed to hear you two over the sound of the engine."

    Richley, in the front seat, shrugged as if embarrassed, then extended his arm backwards to playfully muss his daughter's hair. She batted his hand away with equal good humour, even though most of her hair was drooping from the mud and rain, and those parts that weren't were already rebelliously sprouting in every odd direction.

    "We're very thankful," Benny said for the both of them. "I don't like the idea of sticking around that clearing much longer. Not with the Rex having made three separate showings there."

    "Three?" P.J. asked.

    "Uh – oh, yeah. I forgot to mention that we spotted the Rex in the clearing when we were putting up the camouflage. He didn't see us, obviously, but it was close."

    "Frankly, I'm not sure if the Rex is our main worry right now," P.J. said. "I'm not underestimating the threat it poses, but it seems to be sticking to that clearing for now, and we aren't going back there again – ever. I'm more worried about running into more of those… what did you call them?"

    "Velociraptors."

    "Right. They're fast, they're agile, and they're clever to boot. I'm fairly certain one of them figured out how to open a door."

    "It's more than just opening doors. According to the encyclopaedia, these things were supposed to be smart – almost primate level. They managed to attack our camp without triggering the perimeter alarm."

    "It was cut."

    "What was?"

    "The perimeter. I found a break in it where it looked like it had been cut. Actually, 'cut' isn't the right word. Chewed would be more accurate."

    Several of the team members crammed into the jeep shivered. The beasts they had encountered on this island were scary – terrifying – but in the end, they were just animals, doing things that animals do, like hunting. But these revelations added a whole new facets to the threat they faced, not the least was the possibility that their main advantage – the human ability to reason and solve problems – might not be as significant as everybody had thought.

    "Maybe…" Alice seemed hesitant. "Maybe they won't bother us anymore. I mean, I hate to say it, but why would they keep on hunting us if they've already… you know… fed?"

    There was a moment of silence in the jeep. Just when Alice was beginning to fidget, thinking she had crossed some kind of line of propriety, P.J. answered her:

    "We know that there are at least two groups of these things – or maybe one group, split up into different hunting packs. There might be more packs, and since we don't know anything about the kind of environment these things may favour, we have to assume that they can be anywhere. Plus, we don't know anything about their eating habits. We don't know what constitutes a meal for these things. Or they just as well might have been females hunting for other members of a pack."

    "If eating was even their intention," Benny said lowly.

    "What do you mean?" Ellis asked.

    "Intelligent animals – like us – are renowned for killing when they don't need to. Even dolphins have been observed attacking tortoises for no other apparent reason than sport. If hunting is their idea of fun…"

    Benny let the thought hang in the air. Outside, thunder boomed in the distance. Rain splattered against the roof, the windshield wipers squeaking each time they flew across the glass. Finally, Soles said:

    "In any case, we're not even sure how many people they managed to get."

    "We aren't?" Alice asked.

    "When we examined the scene, we knew there were survivors," Soles stated.

    "Oh, for the love of–" P.J. cut himself off.

    "We didn't know for sure if somebody might have gotten away and survived," Ellis said.

    "And they did," Soles said pointedly.

    "There was no way for us to know that," P.J. answered. "Every sign at the encampment discouraged the idea of survivors."

    "Makes sense," Benny said quietly.

    "No, wait," Alice said. "You guys knew we'd gotten away, but you weren't looking for us?"

    "We didn't know that anybody had gotten away," P.J. said. "We just knew that we hadn't found all the bodies. Well, traces of bodies, anyway."

    "We figured that any survivors would be heading for the clearing," Ellis said in their defence. "Trying to get to the plane – or rather, the airlift site."

    "But there might be more survivors," Soles said. "P.J. said that it looked like four–"

    "Three, maybe four, I said," P.J. pointed out.

    "Four people might have gotten away," completed Soles, unhindered. "Alice and Benny did."

    P.J. turned away from the jungle in front of him to glance at the two persons in questions. "You where there. Do you really think that anybody else might have survived?"

    "Well, not really…" Benny drifted off.

    "If four, maybe three, people got out, that means that six, maybe seven, people got caught," Alice reasoned. "We saw… from the trailer, I mean, we saw Peter, Calvin, Stanley, John, one of Meiller's soldiers – I can't remember his name…"

    "The one with the moustache," Benny supplied softly.

    "That leaves Meiller, the other soldier, and Folker as possible escapees," Alice said. "If we could make it out, I'm sure they could have too. They had the training."

    "We should go back for them," Soles said.

    "Absolutely not," P.J. replied.

    "Even bumping into Alice and Benny beats odds worse than most state lotteries," Ellis expanded. "The chance of finding the others – even if they survived – is infinitesimal."

    "We have to go back," Soles reiterated. "We can't just abandon our friends like this – not until we absolutely certain that there's no way to save them."

    "Look, Soles," P.J. growled. "Why don't you just–"

    "We're not going back."

    Richley had spoken softly, without turning his head to catch the other's attentions, but the statement was made with such finality that even P.J. paused in mid-insult. There was a moment of silence in the jeep as everybody waited for Richley to continue.

    "We can't go back. It's suicidal. Simply being on this island is suicidal, but turning around and pressing back towards the centre of the island is absurd. If we turn back now, we waste hours going back the way we came through the jungle. It'll take even longer than the time it took us to get this far, because of the mud. After that comes the clearing, which we know is a favourite haunt of the T-Rex. It'll be daylight by the time we reach that clearing again – if he's there, he'll see us. Then, assuming we get out the clearing alive, more driving through muddy jungle until we reach the site of the encampment.

    "And what then? Do we sit around, waiting, hoping for someone to come stumbling out of the jungle and into our hands? Waiting where those Velociraptors already once found a large, juicy meal and might return for seconds. Do we call out to them, announcing our presence to whatever might be waiting for us in the jungle? Do we split up and fan out into the jungle to try and find them? Alone, defenceless, against animals which are faster than us and smart enough to disable our traps?"

    Richley paused, letting the words sink in. Despite the roar of the engine and the constant patter of the hard-falling rain, the jeep seemed eerily quiet. Richley shifted in his seat, turning to face Soles.

    "Ramanta, I'm sorry. I really am. They deserve more, I know. I'm sorry that we can't afford to go back and look for them. I'm sorry that I brought everybody to this island in the first place. But it's too dangerous, too uncertain to go back and look for them. 

    "Believe it or not, we've been lucky so far. We were lucky that we didn't run into the Rex – or the even the 'raptors – when we returned to the clearing to get supplies. We were lucky that only one of those things found us first back at InGen, rather than a whole pack. We were lucky that we weren't attacked again when we investigated the encampment. We were lucky to find Alice and Benny again. An hour's difference on either side, and we might have passed each other without even realizing it.

    "But even as matters stand now, we still have several days' worth of jungle to cross before we reach the plane. And I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel as if my luck has pretty much ran out. I'm not willing to risk all our lives on the chance that we might get lucky again. We have to use our brains, and not think with our hearts. From now on, we do what we have to do to survive and get off this island, and damn the consequences.

    "I know I haven't acted much like your leader recently, but I'm doing so now. I'll accept full responsibility for the loss of our comrades. We keep going forward."

    That pronouncement effectively ended the conversation, and the jeep ploughed on ahead through the soaked and muddy jungle, it's occupants – so recently jubilant – hushed and mournful.


	13. Sections 62 & 63 - Stalker

Disclaimer: John Hammond, InGen, Jurassic Park, Isla Nebular and Isla Sorna are all things that I have unconscionably stolen from Michael Crichton's novels Jurassic Park and The Lost World, as well as the movies of the same name. I have drawn on both forms of media (the books and the movies) for this story. It does not follow one or the other specifically… it is implied that John Hammond is still alive in this story, but I use dinosaur elements from the books… and a few that were in neither. None of the characters from Jurassic Park or Lost World, in either variation, appear in this story. Instead, I have chosen to plunk down a new set of characters on the island. Well, I guess that's all there is to say, except… enjoy the story.

Los Cinquo Muertes Chapter 1: Survey 

**In this instalment:**

62. Stalker

63. Roadblock

**62**

STALKER

    The rain fell for the rest of the night and throughout the following day, worsening the conditions of the "road" they were using to plough through the jungle. The jungle floor was so steeped in mud that eventually the occupants of the jeep had to pause on a regular basis in order to clean the wheels of the crass that was accumulating there, or in order to push the jeep out of a shallow sinkhole into which it had fallen.

    As they had previously planned, the six surviving members of Richley's survey team had taken to sleeping in shifts in order that there would always be somebody well rested behind the wheel. Though one might imagine that the tight quarters, bumpy ride and frequent pit-stops might be a deterrent to sleep, the events of the last few days had left the team members so drained that most drifted off into a deep and dreamless oblivion within minutes of having closed their eyelids. It helped that the day was very dark – the sun hadn't showed its face once all day, concealed behind the heavy rain clouds.

    For food, they had eaten the rations that Ellis and the others had packed into the jeep after deciding to abandon the ruined trailer encampment, though all realized that they would have to stop and find to native flora to replenish their supplies soon enough. At the rate they were going, it could take four or five days to reach the plane, and they only had enough rations for another three, at best. Water, on the other hand, was abundant. Thanks in part to the remoteness of Isla Capula, the rainwater was clean enough to drink. They captured it in bottles and canteens whenever they were forced to stop.

    Twice during the day they had paused for a more substantial amount of time, in order to tend to nature's demands and quickly look around for fruit or other edible vegetation, but without luck. The evening was already old when Ellis noted that the rain was subsiding. Soon it became little more than a drizzle, then tapered out entirely. Cascades still fell from the trees as the rainwater drained down through the foliage, but Ellis saw an opportunity for a brief respite without having to worry about catching a cold from the rainfall.

    She slowed the jeep, glancing at the jungle that flanked them on both sides for an opening in which they could turn into. She finally found a likely spot, sheltered between two large-trunk trees. She had some problems turning, the mud clinging to the jeep even more without the momentum of their speed, but was eventually able to get the traction she needed as the wheels climbed over the network of tree roots that littered the jungle floor at this particular site.    As she put the jeep into park, the engine humming contently, the others began to stir.

    "Why have we stopped?" Richley asked. There were no more signs of the depression that had afflicted him yesterday. Throughout the day, he had been alert though somewhat more pensive than usual.

    "The rain has stopped," Ellis explained. "I figured it would be a good opportunity for us to get outside and stretch out our limbs. Look for food, collect water, refill the gas tank, that kind of stuff."

    Richley nodded his assent. Soon all had been awoken and had left the tight confines of the jeep. The ground was a network of hard roots stemming from the massive trees that rose up high above them. In between the lattice of roots the ground was as muddy as everywhere else, despite the heavy covering of the foliage. Rivulets of water cascaded down from the heights, forming puddles at the base of the trees. The team members set their bottles, canteens and cups under these flows of water, which began filling up rapidly.

    After having stretched and relieved themselves if necessary, the six survivors gathered in a circle not far away from the jeep, using the protruding roots as seats, setting their cups of rainwater next to them. They had looked around briefly for food, but they couldn't recognize any of the surrounding wildlife as being edible (no one mentioned that Pietro Folker would have been able to make that assessment, had he been with them), and if the trees contained any edible fruits, they were out of reach.

    The conversation bore on nothing specific, shifting easily from topic to topic, all aware that the pause needed to be brief. Everybody consciously avoided anything having to do with their current predicament, exchanging stories from the more normal parts of their lives back on the mainland, between expeditions or missions.

    Ellis was just telling them about how a mix-up in communications had wound up with her accidentally taking a flight to San José, Costa Rica, rather than San José, California, where she had been supposed to go, when Benny reached over to his cup to take another drought. Just as he was glancing away from Ellis to look at the cup, he noticed a series of concentric circles spreading from the centre of the cup.

    Frowning at the water, Benny watched as the same phenomenon repeated itself again, then again. Soon, Benny thought he could hear some kind of low, thumping sound accompanying each ripple in the water. _Thump_-ripple. _Thump_-ripple. _Thump_-ripple. Unbidden, a memory of the clearing rose to his mind, and he felt his flesh break out into goose bumps.

    _Thump_-ripple. The cup, already precariously perched atop the root, fell over, spilling its contents.

    "What was that?" Soles asked.

    "Get down," Benny whispered. "I've seen this before, get down!"

    Quickly, the six of them scrambled off their roots and lay flat against the ground, the cold mud moulding their features. Soon the thumping sound was impossible to miss, each of the regular beats sending vibrations through their beings. Then, beyond the small opening in the jungle into which they had turned, a large shadow could be seen moving through the jungle.

    They held their breaths as the shadow moved past the opening in the jungle. Despite the darkness – even the moon was hidden behind the omnipresent clouds – they could make out a lumbering shape, large than a house, distinctly bipedal as one paw fell after another, causing the low rumble they had heard before. It stopped just in front of the opening, it's ovoid head swinging from side to side, sniffing the air.

    The Rex – for the profile before them undoubtedly belonged to that mighty predator – remained in this position for several seemingly interminable seconds. The six humans lying on the muddy jungle floor didn't dare move, fearing that any motion might attack the attention of the massive hunter barely thirty meters away. Their hearts beat as if trying to burst from their rib cages. Then the Rex, growling low in his throat in irritation, began moving again, following the path through the jungle that the convoy of jeeps and trailers had cleared days ago.

    The team members waited until the steps of the Rex had receded to little more than low rumblings before exhaling. The dinosaur's massive weight worked had their favour: his footsteps were so heavy that they could hear him coming, or going, as the case may be. It wasn't much in terms of security measures, but every little bit helped.

    After another minute or so, by which time the footfalls of the Rex didn't even cause ripples in the water anymore, they felt comfortable enough to get to their feet.

    "Oh, God," Soles said, falling onto a root. "Oh, wow. P.J., I thought you said that thing stuck to the clearing."

    The hunter shrugged. "I said that's where we had seen it before. Doesn't mean it can't travel. In fact, that clearing is probably the best place to spot any dinosaur. In this morass, we could have passed within a hundred meters of that thing and not have noticed."

    "There's a comforting thought," Alice said dryly.

    "I don't get it," Ellis said. "Is it following us or something?"

    "Doesn't fit," Benny said. "Why would it follow us? I'm sure there's plenty of larger prey out there that would make a much more satisfying meal."

    "Maybe it isn't following us," P.J. commented. "I mentioned that by creating paths through the jungle when we drove through them with our jeeps, we may have created new trails for the animals to use. It might just be following the path."

    "Maybe it's following our exhaust," Benny suggested. "We're probably the only gas-engine active on the island, and the exhaust has to create a pretty distinctive and unique smell."

    "Doesn't make sense," Ellis said. "If it was following our exhaust, why wouldn't it have followed it that bit further and into the opening?"

    "Oh, yeah. I hadn't thought of that."

    "Why it's here isn't important," Richley said. "The fact is that it's here, and we have to avoid it. I think we should wait a few hours before we start again. I know it'll slow us down, but we have to make sure that thing doesn't hear us. I just hope that it doesn't suddenly decide to double back."

    Richley looked around, assessing their surroundings. "I want to move the jeep further in. I don't want anything walking along that trail to spot something shiny and get curious. We'll take the opportunity to get some more shut-eye… but I want someone to stay awake and act as a sentinel in case that thing comes back."

    P.J. raised his hand. "I'll do it."

    "Thanks, P.J. If you start feeling tired, I want you to wake one of us up to take over for you."

    "Don't worry."

    "Good. Okay people, hit the sack."

**63**

ROADBLOCK

    After several hours had passed without any sign of the Rex, P.J. decided it was time for them to start moving again and woke the others. Sullenly, they packed back into the jeep, pulled out of their small shelter within the trees and drove down the blazed path. They rode in silence; the exhaustion and irregular sleep patterns of the last few days taking its toll. Around sunrise – or what would have been sunrise if it hadn't been for the omnipresent cloud covering – the roiling storm broke again, unleashing a torrent of rain on the jeep. Nobody needed to be told that that, because of the noise of the engine and the rain, and because of their decreased visibility, if the Rex was still on or near the path, they wouldn't become aware of her until it was too late.

    As yesterday, they had to pause at frequent intervals in order to free the jeep from a particularly sticky patch of muddy soil in which it had become mired. They usually used these inadvertent pit stops as an opportunity to switch the drivers around, to make sure that there was always somebody fresh and well rested – as well rested as could be, considering the circumstances – behind the wheel.

    By some unspoken agreement, those who slept did so in the backseat, where they could use each other as headrests or for warmth, since the constant rain had chilled the usually tropical climate considerably. The person riding in the shotgun seat would stay awake, keeping the driver company or simply serving as another pair of eyes, scanning the path and the jungle for any of the island's inhabitants or other obstacles.

    It was about one o'clock, according to their watches, when Benny took over driving and P.J. settled in as his co-pilot. The hunter had proven the most resilient of all of them during the last few days, apparently capable of grabbing all the sleep he needed in brief catnaps. The pair finally broke the silence that had pervaded the jeep since leaving their shelter the night before. They spoke in whispers out of respect for those resting in the backseat, but they needn't had bothered: the team members were so worn out that it would have taken far more than a whispered conversation to stir them from their slumber.

    "There are still some things that I don't understand," P.J. said. The two of them had been talking about the Rex they had spotted last night. P.J. wanted to pump Benny for as much information as the biologist could remember regarding the massive predator. Unfortunately, bones betrayed little in terms of information on behavioural patterns, and that's all their encyclopaedia had contained.

    "Yeah?" Benny stained to see out the forward windshield. The rain was falling faster than the windshield wipers could swab it off.

    "Why did the Rex attack the big dinosaur, the sauropod? It sounds as if that sauropod thing pretty much wiped the floor with the Rex's behind."

    Benny frowned, considering. "Well, we know that amongst most animals, behaviour is largely instinctual, rather than learned. And the animal's parents, or analogy thereof, often teaches what isn't genetically programmed. But if the animals on this island were cloned – as Ellis' description of InGen and the embryos they found back at the mountain suggests – then they didn't have any parents to teach them about this stuff. In fact, these animals probably had to rely on trial and error more than any other generation of animals before them." Benny shook his head. "They must have had an incredibly high die-off rate when they started experimenting with these things. That is, unless the InGen guys took care of the animals themselves, like at a zoo."

    "Okay," P.J. conceded. "But what about genetic memory? That has to count for something."

    "It does. From what we've seen, there's no question these animals are very good at what they do. They're adaptable, you have to give them that. It goes back to what I said about trial and error – an herbivorous dinosaur, which has just been released into the wild, has no clue what to eat and what not to eat. This is a completely new environment for it, one where racial memory about can't counsel it regarding food sources. For the carnivores, the problem is largely the same: animals from all geographic points and from time periods spanning millions of years. For the most part, these species are as new to each other as we are to them."

    "So the Rex attacking the sauropod…"

    "Trial and error hunting. It could take several generations before the animals adapt their hunting and defence patterns to the other species here. This ecosystem could take years to stabilize – if it ever does so. In a closed system like this, a slight imbalance can trigger a chain reaction fatal to the rest of the ecosystem. On the other hand, closed systems to tend to remain fairly stable, biologically speaking, barring climatic shifts of course. In fact–"

    "Benny, look out!"

    The biologist had been so caught up in his little homily that he didn't spot the dark green obstacle in their path until it was nearly too late. Knowing that he couldn't swerve to try and avoid the obstruction without sending the jeep into a possibly fatal collision with the massive trees lining the sides of the path, Benny pumped the brakes, hoping that they would stop in time. As Benny and P.J. involuntarily braced themselves against the back of their seats, the brakes squealed as they tried to lock the spinning wheels in place. In the thick, water-filled mud that covered the ground, the jeep kept on sliding forwards, carried by its momentum.

    Then the jeep struck a rockier patch in the ground and came gliding to a halt on a thin sheath of mud. Ignoring the confused protests coming from the back seat, Benny let himself exhale the breath he had been holding and took a good look at the obstacle caught in the jeep's headlights.

    It stared back.

    With a start, Benny realized that the thing lying in their path was not a fallen tree or anything of a similarly inert nature, but one of the island's saurian inhabitants. The animal in question was at this moment pulling itself up to its feet, keeping a wary gaze on the jeep. In the illumination provided by the headlights, Benny could see that the creature's skin was an emerald green, with slashes of darker green running along its back – natural camouflage ideal for overgrown forests like this one.

    As the creature stood, Benny had a flash of fear as he recognised the same basic bipedal build that the island's predators – from the Rex down to the Composognathus – but those fears were quickly assuaged when he saw the distinctive dome-shaped skull that allowed him to identify the beast as a Pachycephalosaurus, a herbivore. It rose to about a meter in height, eyeing the jeep from below the bony mass atop its head.

    "What's wrong?" Soles asked from the backseat.

    "This stupid dinosaur was taking a nap in the middle of the road," Benny replied, irritation lacing his voice. "Hey, you dumb dino! Get out of the way!"

    To accentuate his point, Benny honked the jeep's horn. The creature cocked its head at the jeep, and then emitted a blaring sound that sounded surprisingly like the jeep's horn.

    "Oops," Benny said, furrowing his brow.

    "'Oops?' What 'oops'?" Soles said from the backseat, sounding quite concerned.

    "I shouldn't have done that. I hope it didn't misinterpret –"

    The helmet-headed dinosaur let out another bleat, and then ducked it's head so that they could see the top of its bony, rounded skull. Its back was flat and its tail raised, creating a horizontal plane running the entire length of its body. It then began pawing at the ground with its right leg.

    "What's it doing?" Ellis asked.

    "Oh, crap," Benny muttered. He simultaneous stomped his foot down on the pedal and snapped the gear shift into reverse, sending the jeep racing backwards with a jerk. A split-second later, the Pachycephalosaurus launched itself towards them on its powerfully built hind legs.

    As the others in the jeep cried out warnings, Benny tried the steer the jeep in its mad rearward dash along the narrow road. He kept shifting his attention between the road behind them and the dinosaur running towards them. The Pachy was still running at them – pursuing them, in this case – keeping its head down and level with the rest of its spine to best absorb the eventual impact. Because of this, its head did remarkably little bobbing as it tried to keep pace with the backwards-driving jeep. Thankfully, not even the well-built Pachycephalosaurus could keep up with a jeep, even when the latter was trying to escape in reverse. Gradually the dinosaur was beginning to tire out and lose ground.

    Then the jeep hit a patch of deep silt. With a sudden jerk, the jeep's speed was almost halved as the wheels sank into the muck. Benny barely had the time to try turn the wheel before the still-running Pachy slammed into them. The sound of an impact and crunching metal mingled with the cries of the jeep's occupants as the jeep was suddenly lifted, spun, pushed away and dropped again. It was over as fast as it had occurred, with only the slight bouncing of the chassis as a testament to the bone-jarring collision the jeep had just suffered.

    "Is everybody okay?" Richley asked, doing a quick check-over on himself to make sure that all limbs were in working order.

    "I'm okay," P.J. answered.

    "Yeah, I'm alive," Soles said, brushing broken glass off of herself.

    "Oh, man – does anybody know a good personal injuries lawyer? One that handles dinosaurs and incompetent drivers?" Alice moaned.

    "Sorry," Benny apologized, wrenching his left leg free of a difficult position created when the metal on the driver's side had bulged inwards.

    "Daria?" Richley asked, noticing that Ellis hadn't spoken yet.

    "I'm here," she said. Ellis had been sitting closest to the driver's side window in the backseat, which had had exploded inwards under the impact. Ellis brought a hand to a spot on her forehead that throbbed sharply, and felt something wet and sticky there. "Uh – I think I've been hit."

    "Hit by what?" Alice asked.

    "Glass, I assume."

    "Oh." Alice sounded sheepish, thinking she should have figured that one out for herself.

    "How serious?" Richley asked.

    "I'm not sure – I can't tell –"

    "Hey, that things is still out there!" Soles cried out.

    Indeed, in try to assess the impact of the collision, they had all forgotten about the dinosaur. At that moment, the Pachycephalosaurus rose back into view as it stood again, having collapsed after the unusually hard shock of the smash-up. It shook its head as if trying to clear its thoughts then seemed to notice the jeep again. It let out another challenging bleat.

    "Play dead," Benny advised them, switching the engine off. "We want it to think that it's defeated us."

    "That won't be especially hard," Alice cracked.

    "You sure that it won't try and eat us?" Soles asked, sitting motionless and upright against the backseat.

    "It's a herbivore," Benny said. "It poses no threat to us."

    "Did you hit your head or something, Benny? It just rammed us!"

    "That was different," the biologist said. Outside, the dinosaur was still examining the jeep, oblivious to the rain pattering down against its hide. "It thought that we were challenging it. We nearly smashed into it, and then had the bad luck of having a car horn that sounds remarkably like it does. It interpreted that as a challenge to a duel."

    "A duel?" Alice said sceptically. 

    "I understand," P.J. said. "Like mountain goats. They ram each other to determine their position within the herd."

    "Or for mating privileges," Benny added.

    "I don't see any other of those things out there," Soles pointed out.

    Benny shrugged. "It's an extinct ecosystem. Whose to say what's normal behaviour for these animals?"

    Outside, the Pachycephalosaurus seemed to decide that whatever the jeep was, in no longer seemed to be doing anything of relevance to it. With a final, unreadable bleat, it turned tailed and began trotting away down the road. It proceeded with none of the certainty it had displayed while chasing them, with the legs often slipping off to the side.

    "It looks tipsy," Alice remarked.

    "Good," Soles said vindictively. "That should teach it not to ram into anymore cars."

    "Can we get out now, Benny?" Richley asked. "I want to have a look at Daria's wound."

    "Yeah, sure," Benny answered. Richley and P.J. opened their doors on the passenger side, letting Alice and Soles file out of the jeep. Benny tried to open his own door, but found it was stuck. He had to kick it a few times before it would open up.

    Behind him, Richley had climbed back into the backseat, holding his arms out for Ellis to grasp them.

    "I can do it myself," she said, brushing him aside. Ellis pushed herself along the backseat and out the jeep, keeping a hand on her forehead. When she stood up, however, she slipped and would have fallen if Richley had not caught her.

    "Here, lie down," he said, lowering her to the jungle floor.

    "No," she said. "Keep the wound elevated above the heart." She shifted herself so that she was leaning against the frame of the jeep. She tried to smile. "Didn't they teach you this stuff in exploration class?"

    Richley managed a smile in return. "Folker and Calvin were our medics."

    "Great," Ellis said. "Can you see if there's any skin hanging off?"

    "Uh – hang on a minute." Richley reached over, fumbling around with something in the jeep before withdrawing a flashlight. Despite the fact that it was the middle of the afternoon, the omnipresent rain clouds blocked out the sun's light. "Okay," Richley said, flicking the flashlight at her forehead. "No hanging skin. It's just a cut."

    "Good. We'll need a dressing."

    "We have a first aid kit in the jeep. It'll probably have bandages," Alice offered.

    "Yes, get me that, would you Alice?"

    While the Richleys tended to Ellis' wound, cleaning up the blood and wrapping the bandage tightly around her head, Benny, Soles and P.J. had walked around to the front of the jeep to survey the damage that had been caused. In addition to the broken windows, a large portion of the jeep's head had been dented and bent inwards by the impact. Benny's last minute turn of the steering wheel meant that the jeep had taking the collision at an angle rather than head-on against the front, and as such the damage was largely on the front, left side of the vehicle.

    "I don't know cars," Soles finally said. "How bad is it?"

    "Don't know," Benny confessed. "I study what makes living things tick, not machines. If Carlson was here…"

    "See if you can't pop the hood," P.J. said.

    Benny returned to the front seat and after a bit of fumbling found the right switch, but glancing past the lattice of cracks on the windshield saw nothing occur outside.

    "It must be stuck," P.J. said. "Help me get it open."

    Together, the three of them wedged the fingers in the crack between the hood and the rest of the jeep, and then pulled upwards. After a protesting screech of metal, the hood gave and rose. Grabbing a flashlight off his belt, P.J. flicked it on and peered inside the guts of the jeep.

    "Ouch – looks like a lot of bent stuff," Soles remarked.

    "I can't see anything in this light and with this rain," P.J. complained. "I don't even know if the rain is damaging it further." P.J. dropped the hood so that it was almost closed. "Benny, see if you can't start the jeep."

    "Sure." Benny reached into the jeep and turned the key. With a cough and a sputter, the engine hummed to life.

    "Hey!" Alice protested, still tending to the reclining Ellis.

    "Don't worry, we're not going anywhere," Benny cried back.

    P.J. took another look inside the jeep. "Well, it seems to be working for now," he said, dropping the hood shut. "I think we should just take the opportunity and leave. We can stop and take a look at the engine again when there's more light and less rain."

    "Sounds like a plan," Richley said from the jeep's side. Turning back to Ellis, he asked: "How are you feeling?"

    "Better," she said. "But not even close to how good I'll feel when we reach the plane. We shouldn't delay here any longer than we have to." Slowly, in order to avoid a repeat of her previous dizzy spell, she pushed herself up against the side of the jeep.

    Richley climbed into the backseat of the jeep, brushed some glass off of the seat next to the shattered window, then helped Ellis as she slid along the backseat next to him. Alice, still holding the first aid kit, moved in after her.

    Benny moved towards the jeep, but felt a hand on his arm. He turned to see that the hand belonged to P.J.

    "If it's all the same to you, I think I'd like to drive, Benny."

    Benny glanced up to see Soles trying to suppress an impish smile as she slid into the shotgun seat. Feeling mildly annoyed – it wasn't his fault that the Pachycephalosaurus had decided to rest in the middle of the road, after all – Benny moved around the jeep to take the remaining spot on the backseat. With a certain amount of difficulty due to the inwards-bulging metal, P.J. sat down behind the wheel. Cautiously, he pressed down on the pedal. He was expecting the jeep to sputter and die, but the vehicle responded, beginning to glide slowly forwards through the silt. With a twist of the steering wheel, the jeep turned back onto the blazed path, and continued its journey towards the plane.


End file.
